


a taste of beautiful

by beckywiththegoodhijab



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Bucky Barnes is a really good guy and he really enjoys living in the future, Darcy is a wonderful human who cannot deny the power of super soldier ass, F/M, Fluffy at times, Gen, Jane is a good friend, Meet Miss Ginger!!!!, Romance, Sam Wilson is a saint who deserves canonization
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2020-07-07 21:27:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19858279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beckywiththegoodhijab/pseuds/beckywiththegoodhijab
Summary: Bucky Barnes doesn't know what to make of being jilted by his best friend for a legend who, by all means and purposes, had moved on with a vengeance-He also doesn't know how to rebuild a team that is broken beyond belief-Oh, and he has absolutely no fucking idea how to cope with the woman who keeps on complimenting his ass.Good thing Bucky's best friend is back from the past to meddle with his future.





	1. lakes, ducks, and telekinesis (oh my!)

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written since 2016, but I kind of had to write something after surviving Endgame (I actually really loved it, despite the MANY FLAWS). And I know, I KNOW Endgame really did a bad job with Steve's character arc and it would be so simple to do a FIX IT fic but I kind of like the challenge of taking the film's hack job characterization and turning it into something that is plausible and entertaining, while also canon-compliant. I also want to be clear that I love and respect Peggy Carter very much, and even though Steve made a lot of assumptions jumping back to her in 1946, they do indeed have a long and fulfilling (and sexy~~) relationship in this fic (which we shall glimpse at)!!!!! Forgive me if my Bucky seems a little off- the films give us so little to go off of in terms of characterization, but for now, we are going with snarky and sardonic soft boi. My girl Darcy will appear shortly, so be ready!!!! Also, I love Sam Wilson a lot and he deserves the world!!! Read, review, enjoy!

* * *

Bucky stared at the empty park bench near the lake where he’d bid his final farewell to his best friend. The bench wasn’t anything special- smooth, dull, nondescript wood attached to rickety metal legs. The view of the water was calming, and normally would have quieted the chatter of thoughts in his mind, but all Bucky could do was picture Steve’s face, lined with years that he’d spent _away._

Away.

In the past. Or in this case, Steve’s future. 

Bucky knew the little shit had been planning something- had seen it in his eyes when they’d laid Stark to rest- but he hadn’t expected _that._

Steven Grant Rogers was a constant in Bucky's life- a _constant_ friend, a _constant_ headache, a _constant_ pain in the ass. So this development made _perfect_ sense. Of course, of course Steve would find a way to combine all three constants into one with this little stunt. Of course the punk wasn't satisfied with all the time-traveling he'd done to undo Thanos ́ atrocities- he had to go back _one more time_ and… 

  


Well, that was where Bucky's anger tended to peter out and melt into something else- something like longing and bitterness. His best friend had always sacrificed himself for others. His loyalty was the stuff of Greek legends, and didn't Bucky know it better than anyone? Steve had saved him from Zola’s experiments in 1945, and 70-odd years later, he saved him again from Pierce, and then again from T'Challa and Stark and Zemo, and Thanos, and yet… 

So maybe the anger was a little more complicated than Bucky wanted to admit…

Even though he and the punk had barely spent any time together in this strange new world, he knew that Steve ached for what he’d lost. 

(Bucky wasn’t an idiot- he knew he’d suffered too, as the Winter Soldier and afterward as Bucky Barnes, as he’d ventured into the world a skittish, brainwashed former assassin- he knew that he deserved happiness and stability and all that shit.)

But Stevie- he deserved the universe, even if the universe didn’t deserve him. He had earned the kind of happiness that authors wax poetic about, that painters splash over a canvas in bright colors and bold brushstrokes. Steve had sacrificed himself, again and again. Steve had gotten back up from blows that could kill a man, _should_ kill a man, and still held his fists up and told the world, “I can do this all day”. 

  
A duckling ventured towards Bucky's feet, and he watched as it waddled around him on unsteady feet.

Bucky could forgive Steve for ditching him for the past, even if the past held all kinds of hell for a former Hydra assassin like him. There was no warmth in remembering yesterday for Bucky, but Steve had left behind an inferno when he crashed the plane into the arctic so many decades ago. 

That the inferno in question had moved on, found a new love, had kids, and built a goddamn empire was besides the point. Steve still burned for Peggy Carter, and was willing to abandon Bucky for a chance at living a second life with her. 

Maybe it hurt that Steve had chosen that inferno over a quiet future with Bucky.

Okay, it _did_ hurt, like a motherfucker, and Bucky could admit that to himself while looking out at a placid lake near a picturesque forest. He might even confess, while communing with Mother Nature and an inquisitive duckling, that he was _jealous_ of Steve. 

There. It was out there, even though no one knew it except him, the water, and the ducks paddling near the shore. 

He was hurt, and he was jealous. Bucky missed his friend, and hated that he had lived an entire life without him. He was confused that Steve would go back and insert himself into the life of a woman who had, by all means and purposes, gotten on just fine without Steve. But then again, Bucky also knew that Carter was a lucky dame, and that her life would be richer for having the punk in it with her. Bucky knew that all too fucking well. 

Bucky had broken his conditioning because of Steve. He’d stood and watched his mission fall from a helicarrier into the Potomac, battered and bleeding by his own hands. He’d dragged Steve out of the water, unsure then of the reason why. Even at his most lost, Bucky’s broken mind could remember- _I’m with you to the end of the line._

And now it seemed they had reached the end of that line. 

Memories of that day were fresh, even though it had been a few months since Steve had returned from the past. A quick conversation, a hand-off of the shield and then Steve had left Bucky and Sam, walked away with a speed that didn’t match the frailty of his body. Where had he gone? Back to the past? Back to his future?

Bucky leaned down to pick up a rock from the trail. The air was beginning to cool, and he was ready to rejoin society (as much as he was capable of). Choosing power over technique, Bucky lobbed the rock into the water, shattering the calm mirror-like surface.

He pictured older Steve again, and raggedly inhaled. His best friend was close to 150 years old if he counted the years on ice, and he looked more like his pre-serum self than ever in old age. 

_How long did Steve have left? Would he ever see him again?_

Bucky turned and left the lake behind. He was tired, and ready to leave his sadness behind for the day. 

* * *

The walk back to the compound was peaceful. As the sun slid past the horizon, Bucky watched the forest around him come to life. The sound of cicadas droned and the night air grew chillier. A still-unfamiliar vibration in his pocket disturbed Bucky’s reverie. 

A text message from Wilson (who was not quite the bane of Bucky’s long existence, but definitely close), asking Barnes if he was coming to dinner. 

Instead of responding to the text, he tapped the phone symbol and held the phone to his ear. 

“Barnes, what did I tell you about the future? We don’t talk to each other on the phone if we have the option of texting!” 

“Didn’t wanna type. I’m on my way.”

Bucky hung up the phone and smiled. Wilson was a good guy, and he had followed Steve with just as much faith as any Howling Commando had in the war-zones of Europe. Sure, Sam had a tendency to push his buttons on purpose, but he’d also watched Steve’s six countless times, which made him good people in Bucky’s books. A pain in the ass, but a loyal friend and ally. 

Of course, that didn’t stop him from purposely annoying the man by pretending to be bad with technology. He was a former prisoner of war, for Christ’s sake. He deserved to enjoy the little things in life. 

* * *

The Avengers Compound was being rebuilt with almost startling swiftness, but Bucky supposed that anything was possible when enough Stark Industries money was applied to a situation.

The familiar twinge of regret regarding any thought of Stark was barely noticeable to Bucky as he used the retinal scanner to enter the compound’s western wing. The first area of the compound to be rebuilt had been the residential hall, shortly followed by a communal training area and research labs. The sprawling facility was slowly coming back to life, as more and more people returned to rebuild what had once been the Avengers. Bucky mostly kept to himself, spending time only with the few people he trusted himself to interact with. 

Most nights, dinner was a quiet, cobbled-together affair. After all of the tragedies of the past few years, people tended to give each other space. 

Losing the Black Widow, Iron Man, and Captain America meant the team- or what was left of it- was evolving. Bucky supposed he should fill in as best as he could, although Sam had the shield now (and maybe that was the best gift Steve could have given him, because the idea of shouldering the physical and metaphorical weight of Cap’s legacy was too much to bear for Bucky). 

By the time Bucky reached the common area where the residents gathered for meals, Sam was already seated and eating. Wanda sat across from him, stirring a bowl of soup with her… energy, Bucky supposed it was called, although he wasn’t sure it wasn’t just magic. 

The table was comically large, and only emphasized how many seats were empty. Sam interrupted Bucky’s somber thoughts by waving him over.

“Barnes! Get your ass over here. Wanda made chicken paprikash!” 

Wanda smiled and rolled her eyes as Bucky washed his hands before taking his seat. Before he could serve himself, the Scarlet Witch had served Bucky a generous bowl of soup using her mind. 

Before he could stop himself, Bucky exclaimed, “I didn’t know you could use your powers without moving your hands!” 

Bucky was still getting used to making casual conversation with people other than Steve and Sam, so it was kind of nice to talk with someone who knew what had gone in his mind. Wanda grinned. 

“I’ve always been able to do it, but using my hands allows me to channel the energy more easily. With just my mind, it takes more focus. Let’s see if I can- aha!”

Without moving a muscle, Wanda had peeled an orange lifted from the platter of fruit that rested at the table’s center. Bucky laughed, delighted once again by the strange and wonderful future he had somehow landed himself in. Sam only raised an eyebrow and grabbed the orange out of the air, proceeding to section off and eat the slices.

The soup was delicious and reminded Bucky of his travels through Eastern Europe after the fall of SHIELD. On the run and confused, food had been a way for Bucky to ease himself back into being a human. He’d forgotten what it meant to enjoy a meal for its flavors, after decades of nutritional slurry and IV drips. He tried to think of a way to convey this to Wanda without ruining the meal (his tales of yesteryear tended to be conversation-stoppers), but when he glanced up at her she smiled knowingly. 

“This was my mother’s recipe. I always complained that she made me and not Pietro cook with her because of sexism. Maybe that was so, but at least I can remember those times when I make this dish.” 

Without thinking, Barnes covered Wanda’s hand with his own (flesh hand, of course), yanking it back awkwardly after a moment. 

Sam raised his eyebrow again, so Barnes chose bravery, and a different memory to share. 

“I- I, uh, used to hang around my ma’s skirts when I was little. She’d wear this yellow apron that seemed to have endless pockets, and I remember she’d be carrying my little sister, and stirring a pot on the stove, and would still manage to slip me a nickel for a piece of peppermint candy.” 

Wanda laughed quietly. “She sounds like a special woman, like my mama.”

“She was.”

  


Sam finished eating, finally, and began to entertain his teammates with stories about his own mama, Darlene Wilson, longtime school teacher and Harlem hell-raiser. 

Before long, Bucky’s sides hurt from laughing at Sam’s ludicrous pronouncements about his mother’s new boyfriend, Reggie- “Don’t laugh, I don’t want my mama to become one of those cougars! He’s 68, Barnes! She’s dating a man ten years younger than her!” 

Mood lightened, Bucky and Sam loaded the dishwasher as Wanda made up a tray to take to Bruce, who had skipped dinner to work in his lab. 

She left the kitchen, and Bucky made to leave for his quarters when he felt a hand on his shoulder. 

“Hey, Barnes… I know you were out by the lake again.”

“You got a tracker on me, Wilson?”

“No, I’m just really perceptive and smart. Also, your shoes have duck-shit on them.” 

Barnes wiped the traitorous shit off with a paper towel and waited for Sam to get to the point. 

Sam leaned back against the counter and folded his arms.

(Steve used to do that before forcing him into uncomfortable conversations about emotions. Dammit).

“I got a phone call today.”

Bucky waited, unwilling to give Sam anything. 

“It was from Clint. He says he’s got a house guest who’s not afraid of overstaying his welcome.”

Bucky snorted. “And this is relevant to me because…?”

“Oh, it’s no big deal. Clint was just shooting the shit, complaining that his guest was annoying everyone by waking up at the crack of dawn and chopping wood. He did say that the man was pretty spry for a 200 year old.”

 _Oh._ Oh. Swallowing the ache in his throat, Bucky attempted to project nonchalance as he replied, 

“So Steve’s still in our timeline?”

Sam nodded, and then pulled out his phone. 

“Clint sent me a phone number. I’m assuming it’s Steve’s. I’m not sure why he’s still hanging around our timeline, but I have a feeling he’ll be back here before we know it. I wanted to give you a heads up, in case... well, I just wanted you to know.“

Bucky waited for his phone to buzz, and sure enough, there was a ten-digit number on his screen.

He added it to his contacts, leaving the name blank for the time being. Sam stared expectantly, so Bucky shrugged.

“I’m not sore with Steve for leaving- well, not that sore. And I don’t want to talk about it, no offense. He made his choice. I'm not part of his life now, and that’s that.” 

He turned and left for his quarters, suddenly feeling the exhaustion of 106 years weighing him down. 

He didn’t see Sam tap the “compose” button on his screen, or the outgoing text message that simply read, “Rogers, you dumbass.”

  
\---  
  
  



	2. Bathtub Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky owes a lot of his progress to Lush cosmetics, Thanos' pathetic rationale for genocide, and terrible grammar. It wasn't perfect, but he'd take it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi friends!!! Thanks for your encouragement. I was inspired today, so I churned out an extra-long 2nd chapter. I hope you enjoy! Let me know! Also, if you find any grammatical errors or spelling mistakes, send me a message please! I want to correct them, since I lack a beta. Happy reading!

* * *

In another life, Bucky Barnes began his day at the crack of dawn. Weak rays of sunlight would stream through the ragged curtains that hung from the small window in he and Steve’s rented room. Water from the pitcher would serve for his morning ablutions, and a cracked sliver of glass allowed him enough reflection for a careful shave. Yesterday’s clothing hung from a hook, neatly pressed enough to almost conceal the worn hem of pants and fraying cuffs of shirt sleeves. 

A watered down gulp of coffee and half of a day-old roll was enough for his breakfast, and then Bucky was off to work, joining the hundreds of joes lucky enough to have a job at all. The dock work paid a pittance, but it was a pittance more than most were bringing home those days. 

The putrid odor of fish and oil and smoke clung to everyone who worked on the docks, but Bucky didn’t mind. The sound of swearing men and yelling fishmongers was as soothing and monotonous as the ocean’s waves crashing on the shore, choppy and gray even in the middle of August. 

The sun beat down on the men’s backs during the summer, and many succumbed to the heat, stripping down to their waists. Most were thin, with visible ribs and ropy muscles that strained as they loaded and unloaded cargo from ships. The rookies usually complained of painful sunburns, while the seasoned dock workers were tanned and swarthy from the sun.

Bucky Barnes was no different from most men, albeit a bit broader than average. He was aware of how he looked without his shirt, and was never unaware of the attention he could attract, should a dame dare to tread near the docks. (Sometimes he’d disappear on the clock with a passing lady, and return just a little worse for the wear. The foreman would scold Bucky, but he’d also wink in approval.)

Clocking out was always a rush, and Bucky never felt better than when he could walk home with a pocket full of cash. He’d always stop by the grocers for a small treat- maybe a half-pound of licorice, or if he was feeling really lush, an orange. A pencil for Steve, or a couple of beers for them to toast with. 

Bucky would walk home leisurely, often stopping by alleys and dead-ends to check if Steve was getting his ass handed to him in a fight. More often than not, Bucky would be forced to stride between a struggling Steve and a pissed-off, much larger combatant. 

Each day was long and hard, but Bucky didn’t mind as long as he could go dancing with a dame on Friday nights. He had his family, his best friend, and a paying job. 

Life was good. One day he'd find the right partner, and slow down. He'd become a father, raise a family. It was going to be beautiful.

And then, the draft letter arrived, addressed to James Buchanan Barnes. 

Bucky Barnes was going to war. 

And Steven Grant Rogers wasn’t.

* * *

In 2023, Bucky didn’t wake up early unless he absolutely had to. His bed was larger than any he’d ever owned before, made up with sheets that caressed his body like a lover. This bed had only ever known one occupant, unfortunately, but Bucky wasn’t ready for that kind of action.

Next to his bed was a side-table piled high with paperback novels- mostly science fiction, intermingled with some nonfiction history books that Shuri had recommended to him via email a few weeks after they returned from the snap. He’d stay up for hours each night reading, listening to various playlists curated by the internet (he didn’t quite understand how the algorithms work, but he wasn’t complaining). The western wall of his bedroom was bare save for its window, which unlike the rest of the compound, was not floor-to-ceiling. 

(Bucky may have been a _deprogrammed_ boogeyman slash assassin, but he had some standards of paranoid security to maintain.)

Attached to the bedroom was a large master bathroom that housed Bucky’s favorite piece of furniture: the bathtub. After years of uncomfortably bathing (or not bathing at all, fuck you Hydra!) in cramped basins or freezing European rivers, Bucky savored nothing more than a soak in his black marble bathtub that was equipped with jet streams and a waterfall showerhead. 

Once, just once, Barnes had invited Sam to his quarters to grab a snack before heading for a briefing with Rhodey and Banner. Sam insisted on needing to use the bathroom, so Bucky waited. 

Sam emerged from the bathroom seconds later, visibly agitated and waving something in his hand. 

“Where is your shampoo man?!?! This is a bar of soap! This is a  _ sliver  _ of what was once a bar of soap!!!”

Bucky had shrugged and mumbled something about old habits and ingrained thriftiness from his experience during the Great Depression, but Sam didn’t seem to hear him. He was too busy muttering to himself about self-care and typing furiously on his phone. Bucky thought that was the end of it, but two days later a package had arrived at his door, labeled with brand “LUSH COSMETICS”. Unsure of who had ordered him cosmetics, he’d hesitated to open the package- until he received a long text message from Sam stating that he was sorry for “losing his shit” but he felt compelled to intervene on Barnes’ behalf because he deserved to “enjoy some bougie white-people body butter and beard conditioner”. It was all a bit confusing for Bucky, but he managed to comprehend that Sam wanted him to take some time to care for himself beyond fulfilling his basic needs. 

That meant that Bucky was now the owner of several bath bombs (housed in a tasteful basket on his vanity), a shampoo and conditioner set that was customized to smell like mandarin oranges, and a long-handled brush that made it easy for him to scrub his back. He used a diffusing argan-oil spray to smooth out the waves of his hair, and a moisturizing facial wash that doubled as an exfoliator. It had seemed silly at first- a few lotions and soaps couldn’t wash away the years of guilt and disgust that clung to Bucky like the smell of the dock used to, but slowly, it became easier to view himself as a human who’d had his agency taken from him. 

It was strange, how clarity struck Bucky in the strangest of times. 

A few days after Steve left him by the bench, Bucky had come to the realization that he wasn’t a murderer- yes, his fingers had pulled triggers on guns pointed at innocent lives, but he hadn’t exactly had control of the steering wheel at the time. The thought had been planted in his mind like a seed earlier, when he’d emerged from a portal onto a battlefield. Thanos and his forces stood on one side, and Steve and  _ his  _ forces stood on the other. For the last time (although he didn’t know it at the time), Bucky followed his best friend into the line of fire, and he knew that he was fighting for something greater than victory that day. 

The Winter Soldier was a victim of violent abuse, inhumane brainwashing, and intense conditioning. He had endured indignity after indignity without question, because his ability to question had been stripped from him by those fucking Nazi scientists. He had killed because he had no choice, and that was a tragedy for Bucky to remember for the rest of his days. 

But Thanos? That purple nut-sack megalomaniac was a murderer- a man deluded by his own demons to such an extent that he murdered half of the universe with a snap of his fingers. The Winter Soldier had 38 confirmed kills in a career that spanned 70 years, give or take a few trips to the freezer. The Winter Soldier was wiped after each kill, forced back into the compliant and pliable weapon that Hydra had cocked at the world. 

In comparison, Thanos had wiped out billions of lives across the universe, as well as the wildlife and vegetation on each planet, because he thought he  _ knew best _ . Bucky finally understood that he wasn’t to blame for what he had been forced to do, because he’d never had a  _ choice. _ And he only understood that because he was facing off the most evil son-of-a-bitch he’d ever seen, a man who scorched planets and stole lives with a snap of his fingers because of some bullshit economics theory. It was better than any therapy session Bucky had ever attended.

Still, he hated the lost years he'd spent away from his life. 5 years of choices, 5 years of fresh air and good food. 

Those years could have been spent so beautifully- he could have thanked T’Challa properly for his hospitality in Wakanda, or he could have explored the world with Steve. Instead, he returned to his life and immediately went back to fighting for the fate of the universe next to a talking raccoon and a sentient tree. And then they  _ won _ , but they also lost so much. They buried Tony Stark, they cleaned up rubble, and all-too-soon, Bucky realized that he was alone in the world once more. He was a man out of time, which would have been alright, had Steve remained by his side...

Despite all that, Sam’s bath bombs and scented soaps chipped away at the brittleness surrounding Bucky’s heart. The revelation that he wasn’t a murderer began to take root in his mind, and slowly he began to come to terms with the notion that he deserved happiness. 

* * *

Because he deserved happiness, Bucky took a bath whenever he wanted. He’d fill the tub high with steaming water and would step into it before dropping a bath bomb under the running tap. He read in the tub, wrinkling up pages with the steam and soapy fingers. He’d snack on hummus and pretzels (what a phenomenal future-snack, Bucky was so pleased to live long enough to learn about hummus) while listening to music as he soaked, thinking about nothing and everything. In those quiet moments, Bucky could feel his sense of self settle, and the cacophony of thoughts (of Steve and a future alone) slowly diminished into peaceful silence. 

And that is exactly why Bucky chose to draw himself a bath the morning after learning that old Steve was hanging out at Clint’s farm. He was all ready to immerse himself in his new copy of _Neverwhere_ when he heard his phone buzz. Ignoring it, Bucky slowly lowered himself into the water. The new arm he’d received in Wakanda was lighter than his old one, but his back and shoulder muscles still ached with tension from carrying the weight of a vibranium arm. He opened the novel to its first page and could already feel himself calming down when he heard his phone buzz again. 

And again. 

And again.

Fully prepared to lecture Sam on the merits of strong boundaries and limited contact, Bucky unlocked his phone and saw…

Oh.

The number he’d saved last night had sent him 4 text messages. 

The first one simply said “ **Hey Buck** .”

Then the next one said “ **Hope u r doin well** ”, which made Bucky cringe. Sister Margaret would weep to see Steve’s grammar degraded to such a sorry state, future be damned.

The third text was just a picture of Steve smiling next to a bearded billy goat, and Bucky hated the fact that his face stretched out in a familiar smile (it’s just the goat, Bucky loves goats). 

The final text was longer. Bucky looked away from the screen, hoping to avoid whatever it was that Steve was trying to tell him. Couldn’t the punk leave well enough alone?

_ He already knew the answer to that question. _

Bucky took a few moments to breathe deeply before turning the screen back on. 

“ **I know ur upset Buck. You have every right to question my choice to go back. At first I thought about asking u to come with me, but I immediatly realized that tht was a terrible idea. The past was an awful place for u Bucky, and I realize now that my decision affected u more than i could have ever imagined. I have lived a long life- longer thn most. I thought i was going to die before i ever reached 25. Then i thought I was going to die in the war, and then when I crashed the plane.. I never thought i’d have a life to live. Even when i came out of the ice iwasn’t sure i would ever be happy again. I spent 11 years out of the ice and i either spent them fighting or waiting for the fight. i may have been alive, but i wasn’t living.** ” 

What? 

Steve, the dramatic little shit, had ended there. Fuck him.

_ Fuck him.  _ _ _

Bucky tossed his phone onto the bathmat and opened  _ Neverwhere  _ again. “The night before he went to London, Richard Mayhew was not enjoying himself.”

Bucky laughed to himself, relating to the protagonist immediately. 

The phone buzzed once again, and Bucky fought the urge to drown the damn thing in the bathwater. He realized that the phone was ringing (it was on silent, because Bucky was a civilized human), so he picked it up and stared at the screen. 

The now-familiar 10 digit number stared at him, daring him to pick up.

Forgoing logic, he accepted the call and put the phone on speaker. 

“Buck?”

Pettily, Bucky didn’t make a noise or respond. Steve’s voice was softer now, more weathered. It was achingly familiar, but somehow all new.

Steve sighed deeply, and Bucky smiled despite himself again. His friend was _so_ _fucking_ _dramatic_. 

“Buck, I’m assuming you’re there.”

A beat passed. Bucky waited.

“Oh Buck. I’m sorry. I don’t know how to fix this. I always regretted leaving the way I did. Those days- oh, I was half crazed with grief. After I watched you crumble away into ashes, I just… I lost myself. I tried to find a way to bring you back, bring you all back. That didn’t work, and then we were helpless. Big strong heroes with no way of saving the world we’d promised to avenge. I thought I was going to go mad then…”

Steve waited, but Bucky didn’t budge. 

“Still, this isn’t about me. I guess I have to explain why I chose what I chose, but it makes me sound like a selfish fuck when I say it out loud. After I saw Stark for the first time in 5 years- when we tried to convince him to invent time travel- one thought kept on popping up in my mind, even in the middle of our mission. I saw him with Pepper, saw him hold his kid. And I looked at my life and I saw, despite all of my so-called legacy- there was no one I had to hold on to. You have to get that I thought you were gone still, Buck- I didn’t know if our plan would work. I saw Stark with his family and for the first time, I could see that he was... complete. Or at least, as complete as he was ever gonna get.”

Bucky exhaled quietly, but he knew that even a geriatric Steve would be able to catch the sound.

Encouraged, Steve continued.

“When we won, Buck, when Tony snapped his fingers- for a moment I thought we could have it all. You were back and we could all live happily ever after, and everything would be perfect. Then I watched him die and I just… I don’t know. Something in me cracked. Even dying, Tony looked peaceful. Hell, he looked happy, Pepper holding him, reassuring him that it was okay. I saw that and I imagined myself there… and y'know, I’m hazy on what I was thinking there, Bucky. I’ve been gone a long, long time since that day. All I know is that I wanted that kind of love. I wanted someone to kiss me goodbye. I’ve never had that, y’know, except the one time with Peggy. Makes me sound real self-centered when I say it like that, but it’s true. I just wanted to know what that felt like. And then I remembered… I had almost known the real thing. Maybe it wasn’t a guarantee, but I couldn’t stop myself from trying. After all those decades of doing the right thing, Bucky… I chose the coward’s path. I didn’t try to forge something new… I went back to the one woman I knew I’d loved, the one who'd loved me too… and I hoped I could make her love me again. And I left you behind in the process, and I regretted leaving you as soon as I’d done it. But that’s it Buck. No excuses. I came back here after burying my girl, you know. In our timeline, Peggy passed away peacefully, no Alzheimers, no sadness. She’d lived a long life, my Peg. She saved the world again and again in the quietest of ways. I wore a flashy costume and had statues erected in my honor- she stood her ground in heels, and was overlooked because she chose to do good in the shadows. I’m rambling, Buck. I’m an old man, with a lot of regrets… but also a lot of happy memories. And I've come back to beg you, please. Let me share my happy memories with you, Bucky. You’re my last man standing. I outlived my children. I outlived my wife. Let me be outlived by someone. Please, Buck.”

The silence was deafening. The water had grown cold, and Bucky’s palms were clammy, and he was just… tired. And at the same time, a growing warmth was flickering in his chest. Steve may have been a selfish punk, but he was back, and from the looks of it, he’d finally found that universe-shattering happiness he’d always deserved. 

Fuck it.

“I only got one question for you, Steve.”

Bucky could hear the trepidation in his friend’s voice as he replied. 

“What’s that, Buck?”

(Bucky wasn’t pausing for drama, of course). 

  
  


“Why the hell do you text like a drunk?”

Steve gasped, then inhaled indignantly. 

“Excuse me?”   
  


“All those spelling errors, Steve. Your sainted mother, may she rest in peace, broke her back to give you a proper education, and this is the way you repay her? Since when did you forget the English language?”   
  


Steve started laughing, quietly at first, and then earnestly, and Bucky joined in until tears streamed down his cheeks. They sobered after a moment, and Bucky took advantage of Steve’s older lungs needing longer to recover from their hysteria.

“You idiot. Why couldn’t you have just told me all that before you left? Why does everything have to be high drama with you? You don’t think I get it? You’ve always deserved this kind of happiness, punk. I’d have been sad, sure, but never once would I begrudge you joy. Never. You have to know that.”

Steve sniffled suspiciously, and Bucky swallowed a few times to get control of the catch in his voice before he continued. 

“I wanna know about Peggy Carter saving the world. I wanna know about those kids of yours. You don’t have to apologize anymore, Steve. Just be here. Teach Sam how to throw that shield of yours properly. I already lost an arm during the war, I can’t take being decapitated by the newest Captain America. Finish up your stay at Clint’s, then head up here. We got a lot to catch up on.”

“We do, Bucky. We do.”

Bucky almost said goodbye, but then a thought struck him.

“Sam would be so proud of us for talking this out.”

Steve chuckled. 

“God, I could’ve used Sam’s advice for the first five years of marriage. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, but Lord, it was difficult sometimes.”

“I can imagine. I bet it was something, Steve.”

“It was beautiful, Buck. And I was wrong. I’d thought I’d left the possibility of love and a home behind, but it’s possible. With the right partner, it’s all possible.”

Bucky quietly hummed in agreement, and then ended the call. He was tired, more tired than he’d felt in a long time.

He dried himself off, changed into a pair of clean pajamas, and promptly climbed back into his unmade bed. 

Sleep evaded him at first, but as his thoughts settled, one idea guided him to slumber. 

_ With the right partner… _

_ It’s all possible…  _

_ It’s beautiful… _

Bucky slept.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Thanks for the lovely comments and responses again. Just a note re: Steve's explanation for his choice. It ain't over yet- you'll notice that we barely scratched the surface yet. Steve still has some 'splaining to do. You might be able to tell how much I love my boy Steve Rogers, maybe even more than I love Bucky. I try to even it out here, but it's challenging! Let me know what you think!!!!!! <3 besos.


	3. "Fuck you, I'm a time traveler!"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky thought he knew suffering; he knew it intimately, like some people know their lover's body or the the bow of a violin. 
> 
> But when the new girl with a gap in her teeth ogles his ass and lets him know she's doing it, he learns about a new kind of suffering.
> 
> And then, when he sees 3 faded photos that tear his heart out?
> 
> Bucky's never known anything like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FIRST OF ALL LADY THOR IS HAPPENING? VALKYRIE GETS TO FIND A QUEEN? This SDCC has been a GIFT, and I am so happy to receive.
> 
> Read, review, and relish in the fact that I gave myself finger cramps typing this!!! Also I cried three times writing this- points to anyone who can guess which lines made me weep!!! (actually I'll pm you a spoiler if you can really guess)
> 
> enjoy, and please, bid a fond welcome to my girl, D-d-d-d-d-DARCY LEWIS!!!!!

* * *

“You know damn well I can throw the shield further than you when you only use your flesh arm!”

Sam illustrated his point by flinging the object in question as hard as he could at a target, tripping over his own feet in the process. Bucky guffawed and jogged over to retrieve the shield. It was a sunny afternoon, and Sam’s mandatory “Captain America Practice Session” had turned into a moderately childish battle of skills. 

“It’s not about who’s better at throwing the shield, Sam. You know that.”

Bucky picked up the shield easily, its weight comfortable on his arm. He wondered, for a brief moment, whether or not he was upset that Steve hadn’t chosen him to take up the mantle of Captain America. He glanced back at Sam, who was guzzling from Bucky’s own bottle of water, and scowled.

The punk may not have accounted for dickishness when he chose Sam to take over as Cap, but he had chosen well. 

Being Captain America meant taking over  _ all  _ of what Steve had left behind- the patriotic title, the legendary feats of heroism. It meant stepping into a light that Bucky was happier staying out of, thank you very fuckin’ much.. 

Bucky carried the shield back to Sam, and smiled, reassured of the rightness of Steve’s choice. 

After all, Bucky had made a name for himself following Captain America into the jaws of death. Sam Wilson, for all of his obnoxiousness, was a good man who had served his country in more ways than could be counted. He had earned Steve’s trust, and that was good enough for Bucky- not that he’d ever say that to Sam’s face. He'd follow him too. Steve would like that.

\---

They were washing up in the locker rooms when the AI piped up. 

“Sergeant Barnes, Senior Airman Wilson- your presence is requested in Dr. Banner’s lab.”

Sam perked up at hearing his rank, while Bucky groaned at the thought of going up to the labs.

“What’s crawled up your ass, Barnes?” Sam wiped his shining face with a clean towel before depositing it neatly into the laundry chute. Bucky scowled and followed Sam out the door before responding.

Pitching his voice lower, Bucky explained his displeasure.

“Every time they call me up to the lab, it’s because someone up there needs something to be tested for... “

“Punchability?” Sam supplied helpfully. 

“The word they use is durability, or endurance, but yeah. I’m there to hit stuff really hard, which isn’t my favorite activity in the world. I’ve got layers! What if I wanted to learn about m-theory?!”

Sam did a double-take as they stepped into the elevator together.    
  


“M-theory?” 

Bucky shrugged smugly. “I do a lot of reading, Sam. I told you, layers. Like an onion.”

Sam pressed the button that took them to Banner’s lab and punched Bucky’s (flesh) arm. 

“You didn’t tell me you’d watched Shrek without me, Barnes. I’m hurt!”

A beat passed as they both waited for the elevator to take them to their destination. 

“What the fuck is a shrek, Sam?”

* * *

Though Tony Stark was buried and gone, his legacy flourished in the bustling chaos of the Avengers Compound labs. Somehow, many scientists of particular merit had found their way to Dr. Banner post-snap, and had all expressed a common goal: to figure out how the fuck half of the universe had disappeared and then reappeared within 5 years time. 

Dr. Banner was the lead on the project, but he had reached out to several people Tony had marked “of interest”, years before. Dr. Erik Selvig had not been dusted, but had gone into hiding as his mental health had greatly deteriorated after Loki used the Mind Stone on him. Bruce had taken one look at Tony’s file on Selvig’s work and picked up the phone, intent on bringing the broken scientist on as a leading astrophysicist and foremost expert on the space and mind stones. 

Before long, Bruce and Erik had found a kind of peace in each other’s presence, and became fast friends. Over a few 6-packs of beer, Bruce had gotten Erik to confide in him about his old colleague, Dr. Jane Foster, and their shenanigans in the deserts of Puente Antigua, New Mexico. Bruce knew that Tony had harbored a  _ serious  _ brain-crush on Dr. Foster, and had witnessed Tony’s selfish anguish when he’d discovered that Thor was no longer involved with the astrophysicist. 

It always made Bruce smile to think of Tony melodramatically flinging himself onto a lab table, green smoothie in tow, wailing about “lost scientific opportunities” and saying things like “imagine a baby with Thor’s muscles and her brain! It’s a fucking tragedy, Greenie!” 

That memory spurred Bruce to send out a feeler in the direction of the University of Copenhagen, for whom Dr. Foster had been working at the time of the snap. She’d replied to his email almost instantly, asking if Bruce was offering funding for her research on the reality stone and all things Asgard in general. Before an hour had passed, Dr. Foster had purchased tickets for herself and her assistant for New York. 

After confirming the car picking up Dr. Foster and co, Bruce leaned back in his specially reinforced swivel chair and gazed out the window. “I wish you could be here to meet her, Tony. She’s one of the only minds I know brilliant enough to match our brand of… well, our patented brand of stupidity. I’m glad we could get her here.”

* * *

Bucky forgot any annoyance he may have felt once he walked through the doors into the labs. Every piece of technology seemed to glow with potential, and for the millionth time, Bucky marveled at the advancement of the 21st century. At every turn lay something out of a sci-fi fanatic’s dreams, and the people here knew how to make those dreams into a  _ reality.  _ It was almost too much for Bucky to handle. Sam walked past all of the amazing  _ science  _ (ignorant minds couldn’t conceive of the beauty within those labs) and made a beeline for Dr. Banner, who was eating a mindbogglingly tiny bagel while conversing with two unfamiliar women. 

“Anyways, I ordered 6 dozen bagels and the delivery guy only brought 5 dozen! I hate using Uber Eats- oh, hey guys!” 

Bucky and Sam stood before Bruce’s lab space, which was tucked away in the far corner of the labs. The windows overlooked the acres of land that had been reduced to smoking rubble a little over 6 weeks prior. Now, the fields almost gleamed with greenery and trails that crossed over a burbling brook. A petite brunette wearing an unfortunate flannel shirt and ragged jeans stuck her hand out to Sam and introduced herself. 

“I’m Jane Foster! Pleased to meet you-” Sam immediately took her hand and shook, introducing himself. Bucky remembered his manners and took Jane’s hand carefully, shaking gently. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Foster.”

“That’s Dr. Foster, boys, Doctor as in 4 PhDs, none of which were acquired from dubious for-profit online universities!” The second woman, who up till then had not looked up from her bagel, now glared fiercely at both Bucky and Sam. Her hair was almost black, and was covered by a decidedly handmade beanie that was embroidered with the words “THAT BITCH”. 

Bruce choked on the half-chewed three bagels in his mouth and sheepishly apologized. 

“That’s my fault, Ms. Lewis! I didn’t tell Barnes or Wilson why I’d called them here. Guys,  _ Dr.  _ Foster and Ms. Lewis are joining our merry band of scientists as of today! They’re amazing astrophysicists-”

Beanie girl cleared her throat and stared pointedly at Bruce until he quickly corrected himself. 

“Ah, my apologies again Ms. Lewis. Dr. Foster is a world-renowned astrophysicist, whose work on the Einstein-Rosenbridge revolutionized our understanding of how Asgardians like Thor traveled from “realm” to “realm” with such ease. And Ms. Lewis is her… What is your official title, Ms. Lewis?” 

Bucky watched the strange Ms. Lewis pick at her bagel as she responded instantly.

“My official title is actually just Darcy, assistant to Dr. Foster, bringer of caffeine and carrier of equipment. Oh, and I’m also responsible for making sure Jane remembers to eat and sleep on a regular basis. Which reminds me, Janey, be a dear and eat this bagel, capische?”

Bruce looked mildly flabbergasted, but remembered his original aim in requesting Sam and Bucky’s presence in the labs. “Anyways, I was hoping you two wouldn’t mind showing these ladies around? Since they just flew in from Greenland and haven’t been stateside since, well, before the dusting, they needed a place to stay. They’ll be bunking here on the compound, and are actually on the same floor as you two. Is that okay?”

Sam looked a little too delighted to hang out with absolute strangers, although Bucky tended to abhor meeting strangers more than the average person. (With life experience like his, who could blame him?)

The strange Ms. Lewis seemed to agree, and grimaced to herself as she stood up from her seat. Bucky took both of the bags at her feet without being asked, and followed Sam as he excitedly showed Dr. Foster around the lab, pointing out all the weird scientist types she’d want to avoid in the future. Bucky didn’t want to walk next to Ms. Lewis and make small talk, but it seemed like the right thing to do, and as a reformed former-assassin, he tried to do the right thing at least once a day. 

“So… Greenland, huh? Isn’t that the icy place?” 

Bucky tried to avoid shooting himself right then and there as Ms. Lewis pinned him with a look of utter disgust. 

“Uh… yeah. It was really cold… we were at Narsarsuaq collecting some climate data when… well, when we all peaced out.”

“You mean you both were- uh, dusted, right?”

She nodded, and Bucky felt awful for bringing Greenland up at all. 

“I’m sorry about that, Ms. Lewis. I was in… I guess it’s not really a secret if you’re here- I was in Wakanda when I was dusted.”

  
  


“I’m Darcy, remember?” Darcy stopped walking, so Bucky stopped too. Quizzically, he looked to Sam for help, but the man had already stepped onto the elevator and was gone, Dr. Foster in tow. 

“Sorry, Ms. Lew-Darcy. Sorry. I’m not usually this much of an idiot.”

Darcy narrowed her blue eyes and poked Bucky in the chest with her finger. “You didn’t tell me your name… And your face tells me you’re one of those superhero types. Which one are you?” 

Bucky groaned without thinking, and Darcy smiled for the first time since he’d met her. 

“You are! I’m so right! I know you aren’t the Hulk, or Iron Man, which I’m sorry about, by the way. You can't be the Black Widow either, and I know Hawk-ass well enough to know that's not you.”

“I’m not really an Avenger, ma’am. More like… Avengers Adjacent?”

Darcy laughed loudly as they stepped onto the elevator, and the sound of it made something in Bucky’s gut twitch a little. She stood close enough that he could see she had fine lines next to her blue eyes that were winged with black liner, and a gap between her two front teeth. Her lips were _very_ red, and plump, and she had pale skin that seemed smooth to the touch... 

It took Bucky a moment before he noticed the way the shorter woman was craning her neck to stare at his…..

“I’m not trying to be creepy, dude, but I’m pretty much the world champion at identifying superheroes by their tushies. It’s my superpower!” Darcy grinned again, and he was taken aback by how pretty her smile was. She was way less grumpy when she was staring at his butt. 

He awkwardly shifted the bags in his left hand so she could get a better look at his posterior. 

Bucky tried not to tense his ass too much as she bit her lip and gazed closely at his rear.  _ Were his pants too loose? Too tight? Were there sweat stains back there?!  _

“I think I’ve cracked the code, my friend!” 

“You have?” (Bucky prayed that the fire alarm would go off and they could avoid the misery of her figuring out that he was a piece of shit- no, that wasn’t something he called himself anymore, but he wasn’t in the mood for the absolutely  _ awful  _ silence that followed every time someone realized that he was the Winter Soldier.)

“Yep! I got it. You’ve got the physique of a god, the hair of a L’Oreal shampoo model, and the obvious trauma of a bonafide hero- you’re either an Asgardian that Thor didn’t tell me about, or you’re the one and only Bucky Barnes!”

James gaped at her. “How… how could you know that from my ass alone?!” 

Darcy tried to keep a straight face, but her mouth twitched once before she broke into full-out laughter. 

  
“I’m so sorry! I’m jet-lagged like nobody’s business and I have zero brain-to-mouth filter on a  _ good  _ day. I was staring at your butt, but only because it’s the nicest ass I’ve seen in a long time.”

Bucky tried to think of a way to reply to that, but failed to do much more than open and close his mouth. 

(Secretly, he felt a surge of pride at her admiration of his rear-end.)

Darcy’s amusement morphed suddenly, and she frantically exclaimed “I promise I’m not going to sexually harass you for real- I was just being an idiot! An inappropriate idiot! And I only figured out who you were because of your metal arm. I read about you, on the internet. After the Sokovia Accords, I did a  _ lot  _ of reading and you came up once or twice. I’m a big fan. Not of the assassinating, that is…just you know… I’m a fan of your ass. And your heroism!”

Bucky stared at the elevator door, wondering why he hadn’t just died when he’d fallen from the train all those years ago in Europe. Darcy seemed to be thinking similar thoughts, when the doors finally opened, and she quietly told him her room number. Sam and Jane were clearly long gone, so Bucky silently carried the bags to her rooms. The strange woman was obviously working her way up to another panicked apology, so Bucky decided to choose bravery (he was doing that a lot lately), and spoke first. 

“I don’t mind… the butt-stuff. Well, not butt-stuff, but the ‘you looking at my ass’ stuff. I get it. I get awkward around strangers too. I ain’t offended.” 

  
Darcy seemed to fight the urge to react to his word choice, and only nodded in response. 

“Anyways…here’s your room. It’s right next to mine, so if you need anything, just knock.” He turned to leave, but Darcy spoke once more. 

“Thank you, -oh, what do you go by now? I don’t want to presume…”

  
  


He stopped, and turned to face her. He could see strands of white in her dark hair, right near the temple. She couldn't be more than 26 or 27, but time had a way of taking its toll on all of them.

“Call me Bucky.” 

Darcy smiled. “Thanks, Bucky. I’m sorry I was weird. I’ve been gone for 5 years, and well… you know how it can be, coming back.” 

_ You have no idea, lady.  _

Bucky nodded, and turned to walk away. 

His enhanced hearing meant he could hear her inhale sharply, as if making up her mind, and then her voice rang out clear and teasing across the hall. 

“I hate to see you go, neighbor!” 

Her door was closed before he could turn to reply. 

Pausing before his own door, Bucky struggled to figure out the obvious reference Darcy had just dropped on him. 

Nothing was coming to mind when he walked inside, shrugging off his sweatshirt and toeing off his sneakers. 

Bucky opened his refrigerator and glanced inside for a suitable snack. He considered the week-old Chinese takeout for a long moment before he realized-

he was not alone.

* * *

Worried for a moment that his new neighbor had broken into his home, Bucky crouched defensively, knife in hand, before he recognized the low chuckle emanating from the shadows of his living room. 

“What’s got you so jumpy Buck? I thought you’d seen me and were choosing to ignore me.”

The lines of Steve’s body had changed with time. Bucky could still remember the first time he’d seen the stubborn jackass in that uniform, rescuing him from Zola’s experiments. His mind had been addled with drugs (and whatever else they’d poisoned his mind with), but Bucky could recall his shock at Steve’s immense biceps, his awe at the breadth of his friend’s shoulders. It had taken him weeks to recognize that strange body in the scope of his rifle as one to defend, instead of one to shoot.

Now, though...

Bucky returned his knife to its hiding spot under his counter, and sat next to Steve on the sofa, careful not to jostle his friend’s slighter frame.

“I’m not breakable, Bucky. I’m old, not made of glass.”

_ And there it was.  _

“You remind me of the old you… before the spangly tights.”

The words feel like mush in Bucky’s mouth, and he can’t understand why  _ this  _ Steve was affecting him so much. Steve was still Steve… just  _ old.  _

“I can imagine how strange this is, Buck. Or, I can guess. We’ve done and seen some bizarre things over the years… how does my elderly visage rank, jerk? Am I uglier than Schmidt when he peeled off his skin to become the Red Skull?”

Buck huffed, and carefully took hold of Steve’s shoulder. The gesture felt familiar and  _ right,  _ and he was so glad he’d let his anger go for the time being.

“Nah, your ugly mug is exactly the same as it’s always been. I’m just… I’m taking a minute to absorb the new you. At least you didn’t lose all your hair. Guess that serum was good for something.” 

Steve didn’t reply, and instead dug around in his pants pocket for a moment. Bucky watched, noticing the gnarled veins on the backs of Steve’s hands. There were little brown spots near his knuckles, and Bucky realized that he was starting to tear up when Steve pulled a worn leather wallet out. 

“I brought these photos with me… I mean, I have a cell phone, so I have thousands of photos on there, but these....”

Bucky tried to steady his hands as Steve opened the wallet and retrieved 3 old-fashioned polaroid snapshots from its depths.

He handed the first one to Bucky. 

“That’s our wedding day Buck. No one there but me, Peggy’s sister, and…”   
  


Bucky’s jaw dropped. 

“You told them?!”

The photo was slightly blurred, but it still captured the moment perfectly. Peggy and Steve stood front and center, clearly just married. Steve was classically handsome in a suit and tie, but his hair was a little  mussed , and was that a smudge of red on his lips? Peggy was composed, of course, and stunning, in what must have been a white dress and short veil. To her left stood a thinner, paler woman who had to have been Peggy’s sister, and next to her was _Jacques Dernier himself_ , laughing and holding a glass of champagne. Positioned in the rear of the shot, Dum-Dum Dugan and Jim Morita each had a hand clapped on Steve’s shoulders, and Gabe Jones stood next to them holding what must have been Peggy’s bouquet. 

Bucky’s throat worked as he tried to make the words come out. 

“How- when did- you told them?” 

Steve covered Bucky’s shaking hands with his own, and Bucky took comfort from the warmth of human touch.

“It took me a month to convince Peggy that I wasn’t a ghost, or a Nazi spy, or a shapeshifter. I couldn’t convince her alone, so I went to Morita first. Peggy always liked him, y’know. I told him a half-truth in the beginning, but he got the whole thing out of me eventually, and I ended up deciding to trust the rest of those idiots with the truth too.”

Bucky smiled, despite the fact that he felt like vomiting from the gravity of what he was looking at.

Steve squeezed his hand, and smiled back. 

“I know, Buck. It’s insane… I can’t believe I did it. At first, I really couldn’t believe it. I’d see the price of a car and have to step awat, take a breather. It didn’t seem possible that I’d come from this world… but then, I figured out where Peg was. It was 1946, and I’d chosen to land in Vinegar Hill. The old neighborhood was mostly unchanged, maybe a little bit nicer in some spots. It’s a long story, but the first time I tried to talk to Peggy, she hit me in the head with a stapler. I was so glad to see her, I didn’t even care that she’d cracked my head open with office supplies. She had me in an interrogation room for hours before she had to let me go. It was the best day I’d had in years.” 

Bucky’s heart constricted.  _ Why are you surprised, Barnes? Best friend loses to future wife, every fucking time. _

Steve handed him another photo, and Bucky instantly regretted his bitter thought.

This photo was in faded color, shades of sepia-toned pink and gold. Steve, looking younger than his years, rumpled in a sleeveless undershirt, holding a tiny bundle. The tiny face inside the bundle was serene, clearly asleep. Bucky traced a finger gently around the photo, shocked.

“I’m… I’m an uncle? What’s their name?”

Steve’s face did something new, something Bucky hadn’t seen before on his friend- it was a combination of love, and fear, and joy, and  _ pride _ , so intense that he could hardly stand to look at it. 

“Her name was Natasha. Natasha Sarah Rogers-Carter, though we called her Nat for short.”

Bucky couldn’t help it, then. He wept, just for a moment, thinking of the soft-hearted woman who had fought next to Steve for the entirety of his friend’s time in this century. He knew what Natasha had meant to Steve, and how he mourned her death. Natasha would have  _ loved  _ the baby in the picture, and he told Steve so.

“I know. I told Peggy all about Natasha, about her bad jokes and her Widow’s Bites and her loyalty. When Nat got old enough, I told her stories about her aunt, up in heaven. She used to talk to Natasha, believed she was her guardian angel. Sometimes, I think she was right about that.” 

Bucky stared at the photo another moment before his breath caught.

_ Her name  _ **_was_ ** _ Natasha. _

“I’m so sorry, Steve- when…?   
  


“It’s alright, Bucky. It’s been a long time since… I got to watch her grow up. Saw her take her first steps, helped her do her hair in the mornings before school. I made her homemade Halloween costumes, helped her up when she fell out of trees. She played field hockey like a demon in grade school, and went to college to study law. Her ma and I were so proud of her, even when others disapproved of her. She was 25 when she got married, 27 when she had a little boy of her own- she named him James, don’t ask me why-and then, when she was 29 years old, still just a baby….” 

Steve’s shoulders shook then, with quiet sobs, and Bucky hated himself for saying anything. Unsure of how else to comfort him, Bucky wrapped his arms around Steve from the side, and held on tight. Steve hugged him back, and quieted quickly. 

“It’s alright, Buck. I’ve imagined telling you about Natasha since the minute I found out Peggy was expecting. I told her so many stories about us as boys, then as soldiers. She used to pray for you, thought you’d been lost in the war. It’s funny, though Buck.”

“What is, Steve?”

“I’ve saved thousands of lives in my career. Maybe millions, billions, after Thanos. I’ve jumped off buildings and out of planes to rescue others, and I’ve always succeeded. When missions went south, I could always make it through by the skin of my teeth… but that day…”

Bucky waited, but was unable to keep himself from speaking. 

“Steve?”

“That day, it’s like I was there just to watch. I remember it so clearly. We were playing catch with James on the front lawn, barely tossing it. The ball was one of those cheap ones, made of plastic, and the wind blew it out onto the street. Before Nat or I could do anything, James ran after it. I was fast, but Natasha was faster. I never could tell if she’d gotten any effects from the serum, but sometimes… she pushed him out of the street and was hit by a car a second later. She was killed on… on impact. She couldn’t have been conscious for a few seconds before… and I just stood there. It was the first time in almost a century that I felt my heart skip, the way it used to before the serum.”

He stopped talking, and Bucky couldn’t help but keep his arm around that frail shoulder. 

Steve placed the final photo on the coffee table, and Bucky waited a moment before picking it up. 

The photo had clearly been folded and unfolded a hundred times, but Bucky could still see its subjects clearly. 

Peggy and Steve were both middle-aged in this photo, with streaks of gray swirling through Peggy’s dark locks and faint lines marring the smoothness of her lovely face. Steve’s hairline was slightly receded, and beard was clearly peppered with white. They stood arm in arm, and between them sat a girl of about 14 on a tiny stool, the kind used only in photo-studios and preschools. The teenager- Natasha- had a mischievous glint in her eyes, one Bucky knew all too well, and he laughed in quiet disbelief.

Steve roused from his reverie and asked what was so funny. 

Bucky laughed louder this time, and let the thought sink in. 

“I’m just picturing you trying to raise a little girl named after the most famous assassin Russia ever produced, yours truly excluded. A little girl who inherited your genes and Peggy Carter’s genes, and who had to deal with your punk ass her entire childhood… I wish I could’ve been there, Steve. I wish so much…”

Steve leaned his head on Bucky's shoulder and gazed at the photo of his family. 

“I told you, Buck. Maybe I chose the coward’s path to happiness, but I don't regret my choice. My wife, my baby… Between those two, I got to have the whole world. My only regret was not having you by my side. You’re my brother, Buck. You were my daughter’s uncle and she loved you. I made sure of it. Her son is still alive, in my timeline. He’ll be 48 next year. He’s a scientist, researching nano-particles… well something complicated that Stark would’ve made fun of me for not understanding. I wanted to tell James the truth about me, before I left. I suspect that he’d take it badly, though, especially since I can hardly explain the quantum realm time travel.”

Bucky sat up straight, and turned to face Steve completely.

Panic made his voice crack, but he had to make himself clear to Steve.

“You have to back right now! Don’t leave him behind for me, Steve. He’s your grandson- your flesh and blood. He needs you!”

Steve laughed at Bucky, and waved his hand dismissively. “He doesn’t need me anymore than he needs my help installing an app on his phone. Peg and I raised James with his father, Alvin, until he was 18 years old. James was independent from the minute he could walk and talk. Never listened to us, raised hell. I cherished every minute, but I know he’s fine on his own now. I told him I was going on a retreat, real quiet place. No phones allowed. He’s busy, anyways. Got a husband, two adopted babies of his own. It was hard to leave them, but I know I can go back. My life may be close to over, but I had to see you, to spend as much time as I have left here. I owe you at least that much… that is, if you’ll have me?" 

Bucky swallowed, trying to compose himself. 

“How can you choose that, Stevie? You have a family in your timeline, you had the commandos. I was probably a murdering sonofabitch in your timeline too! You shouldn’t, you shouldn’t choose me. Ever.”

_ And there it was.  _

“Buck, look at me.” 

Steve’s voice was deeper, more like he remembered it. 

“Bucky, do you know what I did for a living all these years?”

Bucky shook his head.

“Peggy got me in with SSR. I had my beard, wore glasses, and it was enough to hide who I was. It was enough for me to get a good job running special ops. I had a fake military service record, thanks to Dum Dum, and I was able to serve. And do you know what kind of missions I conducted, Buck?”

Bucky was still mute.

“I looked for you. I followed dead end after dead end, searching for Hydra, the Red Room, anything that could help me find you. Vasily Karpov was dead before I could get to him, or I might’ve have found you during the 50s. After a while, I realized that only an act of God would get you in front of me the way I found you in DC, and so I tried focusing on the world as it was. I started working with lobbies against segregation, participated in sit-ins, protested the Korean War. Marched a whole lot. Didn't have a shield, but I tried fighting a new way, and got arrested more times than I could count. But all those years, Buck. I looked for you. Peggy looked for you. We tried, Buck, and we failed. That’s why I’m here. I could only save you once; I’ll be damned if I won’t savor what time I have left with you by my side. My grandson will be fine, my great-grandsons will be fine. It’s you I owe everything to, and it’s you I choose. I chose my own happiness once, Bucky, and I’ll always be glad I did. But I missed you, dammit. I missed you. And I choose you, and I hope that... you can choose me back."

Bucky didn’t reply- he  _ couldn’t _ , but Steve understood. Steve had always understood, even if it took him literally 70 years to show up and save the day. So he nodded, and wiped his eyes on his sleeves. After handing back the photos, Bucky stood, and unsteadily walked to the fridge.

He opened it, robotically scanning the shelves. Dissatisfied with its offerings, Bucky closed the fridge and grabbed his phone. 

  
“Pizza or Chinese Steve?”

Steve stood too, and joined Bucky in the kitchen. 

He grabbed Buck’s shoulder and squeezed tight, the way they used to when they were ignorant of anything except their friendship. 

“Both, Buck. The food at Clint’s farm was absolutely awful. I’m starving. Get some kung pao chicken, will ya?”

Bucky immediately frowned. “You never eat the kung pao, you always say it’s too spicy!”

Steve was halfway to the bathroom but called back, “Fuck you, I’m a time traveler! I eat spicy food now, things change!” 

Bucky laughed, and typed the order in on his phone. 

  
  


_ Some things change… but others stay exactly the same.  _


	4. Steve Rogers is 100% That Bitch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky gets reacquainted with Captain Roommate, and realizes that things are Not As They Seem when it comes to his feelings about one Darcy Lewis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry? I'm a teacher and the school year started 5 weeks ago and I guess it took me that long to get my shit together and write a chapter.

Bucky had forgotten what it was like to share a space with Steven Grant Rogers.

Sure, they’d spent most of their late teens and early twenties together before the war, and then they’d shared _plenty_ of tents while trekking across Western Europe hunting Nazis and Hydra, but after rediscovering himself in Romania, Bucky only recalled the rosier memories of posing for sketches while sipping lukewarm beer and raiding Nazi bases before blowing them up with C-4.

After 12 days of all Steve Rogers, all the time, Bucky remembered _everything._

The singing, for one. The singing was not to be tolerated, but there it was, all the time. 

Steve had always been a passable singer when he chose to try, but more often than not, he warbled off-key to himself while doing household chores. 

Bucky wouldn’t have minded it too much if Steve had stuck to the songs of their time. Maybe some Andrews Sisters, maybe some Billie Holiday. There was something almost… unholy about listening to Captain America tunelessly sing lyrics like “I just took a DNA test, I’m a 100 percent that bitch!” while dicing onions for dinner. 

Worse than the singing was the exercise--upsetting, age-inappropriate exercise. Steve still woke up at the asscrack of dawn and moved all of Bucky’s tastefully-arranged furniture around to go through his paces. 

Bucky would lie in bed and listen to Steve grunting through push-ups, sit-ups, lunges, and god-knows-what-else. He wasn’t sure what Dr. Erskine had put into that damn serum, but there was something sobering about seeing the crepey skin of Steve’s arms that had once bulged with rock-hard muscle--those arms that had once rescued civilians, thrown shields, wielded hammers, and for a time, held wife and babe close. Those arms still had strength, but there was frailty too, and it upset Bucky to see it.

He’d only ventured out to watch Steve exercise once, and he’d been so bewildered by the sight of his elderly friend doing burpees in bike shorts and a tank top that he never repeated it. Steve was _jacked,_ wrinkles be damned, and his centenarian-six-pack put Bucky to shame. It was almost enough to give a guy a complex about all of the croissants and brioche and french toast--almost, but not quite. 

* * *

After a few days of catching up--

and it had taken days, hours to discuss all that had gone in their strange lives, all the lost years of violence and war, all the missed connections and broken ties. Bucky had needed to ice his eyes after he and Steve finally mustered up the courage to remember Tony Stark and his final sacrifice.

Oh, and Bucky finally did it. He told Steve about Hydra, about pain and electrocution and abuse and the aching peace of cryo-freeze, and he didn’t allow himself to stop until Steve was shuddering so hard that he was afraid that his friend was stroking out, but it was just Steve sobbing.

And then they talked about Natasha the first, the red head with the monumental soul and perfect aim, and Steve pulled out pictures of him with Natasha over the years, dressed up for galas and in dirt-streaked uniforms from missions past. Steve taught Bucky about Natasha the second and her warm brown eyes, and the way she'd always held her father's face when he held her as a toddler, and the way she could never stop herself from fighting back in the face of injustice- although Steve was quick to point out that she "used her words, Bucky, she had a lawyer's soul trapped in her tiny body from the day Peggy pushed her out, and I never won an argument again."

He told Bucky about Peggy, and the way she took months to accept that Steve was still alive, had gone to the future and fought more wars and seen aliens and toppled an organization she hadn't even finished founding yet. He explained how Peggy left him to be little Nat's stay-at-home dad for the first 6 years, how she'd stay late and work hard in an era caught up in arms races and Cold War tactics. How their neighborhood had great schools but busy roads, and how he'd learned to cook for his family, and how he'd help Peggy iron her clothes and oil her guns before bed. 

Bucky told Steve about the voice in his head that told him that he didn't deserve to be happy, and that he'd never be more than a fucking killer, a murderer living in a building erected by a man whose parents he'd also murdered, and how he couldn't look Pepper Potts in the eye or be in the same room as Stark's little girl. 

Steve described the way Peggy had looked at him when they'd closed the door to their hotel room on their wedding night-- hungrily, but warily, as if unsure that he was there to stay, and he told Bucky how long it took for that look to leave her eyes, that he'd spend hours using his words and his eyes and his mouth and his body to tell her that he wasn't leaving, that he was there to _live_.

Bucky showed Steve his scars, the years of pain etched onto his skin like tattoos, on his back and on his calves, iron manacles and burn marks shaped like cigarettes and brands and so much, so much housed on the surface of his skin that they both had to stop talking and just sit, silently, carrying each other's sorrow. Together, til the end of the line--

yeah, they caught up.

* * *

Steve had wandered off and found Sam around day 4, and since then, the two took great pleasure in training together. Bucky had gotten used to working out with Sam alone, out on the green fields surrounding the Avengers facility. Now, Steve and Sam spent the first few hours of every morning together, working on Sam’s shield throwing and combat skills. 

Bucky didn’t feel left out, but he was sad to see so much of his day wasted on _exercise._ He had books to read in the tub, for god’s sake. 

Still, there were perks to having Steve around. For one, he was great at deflecting his new neighbor’s attempts at talking to him. Darcy had knocked on his door once, a few days after their ill-fated encounter in the lab. Bucky still blushed thinking about the brunette’s heated gaze lingering on his ass--she was a forward kind of dame, and he wasn’t sure if he liked that or not.   


(Although, he’d done squats for _days_ after he met Darcy--his superhero tushie needed maintaining, and he really was eating a lot of baked goods.)

Steve had answered the door, and she’d asked for the “cutie with a booty from the 1940s”--Bucky’s eyes nearly popped out and Steve, bless him, told Darcy that he was currently out, but could he take a message for her?

Things were fine, really. Bucky wasn’t taking as many baths, and his pile of books was starting to collect dust. He’d missed a few video calls from Shuri, but he knew she’d understand. 

Steve’s return meant that Bucky was busy keeping the punk from joining in on Avengers-related shenanigans. The sight of Steve watching new recruits run through different combat simulations on a security feed made Bucky stop one day--wistfulness was stark on his friend’s face, as the younger recruits high-fived and cheered each other on when one of them mastered a combination.

Bucky knew that look. It was the same look that had graced his best friend’s face on December 7th, when Pearl Harbour was bombed and America’s men had stood up to take arms. Steve’s blue eyes had clouded with frustration and his mouth was twisted with dissatisfaction for his ailing body and weak heart.

It had been years since Bucky had seen this, but he remembered it--the war inside of Steve that had raged ever since he was a ragged 10-year-old with a streaming bloody nose and knobby knees, swaying as he faced off against a teenager who had stolen a little girl’s ribbon. Bucky knew it all too well--Steve _missed_ the fight, and once again his body wasn’t cooperating. 

For all of his calisthenics and yoga pants, Steve wasn’t the warrior who had faced Thanos and his army with nothing but shattered shield and weary determination. This new Steve sometimes needed help getting up from the sofa after a long night of watching television. This new Steve liked to take naps in the afternoon. This new Steve read books about how planes worked and drank tea that smelled like chai and spices--he had no reason to miss being back in the field. 

But Bucky knew better than to accept his friend’s struggle with his new lifestyle at face-value. For all of his bemusing old man ways, Steve was wiser now than he’d ever been as Captain America, the so-called master tactician (and professional shover of foot-in-mouth). He was formidable in the field when he was fighting-fit, but Steve now? He’d gone and learned some valuable lessons from the school of marriage and the college of parenthood. 

* * *

For example: arguments with Steve were curiously pain-free now.

Sure, he and Bucky got into arguments just as often as they used to on the streets of Brooklyn all those years ago, but now, Steve _listened._

What the fuck was that about? Bucky couldn’t believe it the first time that Steve apologized to him about ignoring his perspective during a debate about the Yankees’ chances that season--they’d come to blows many times in their lives over topics less consequential than baseball. But that wasn’t the only major thing that had changed about Steve Rogers. No, the awkward Steve of yesteryear was _gone_ , and an incorrigible old charmer had replaced him.

Case in point: on the day that he adopted a kitten (without asking Bucky), Steve committed the ultimate treason, and invited Darcy to their apartment for coffee, and changed Bucky's life for good.

Bucky had been gone for a week on a brief mission surveilling an AIM facility in Nevada, and had been excited to get back to his apartment so that he could engage in some quality self-care. He’d ordered a new body-scrub from LUSH and he was desperate to try it before Steve got into it and accidentally used it as cake-frosting. 

After a lifetime of awful surprises, nothing could have shocked Bucky more than the sight of Darcy Lewis sitting on his loveseat, sipping macchiato and daintily nibbling on his _special biscotti_. 

Steve had turned to Bucky, oblivious to his best friend’s horror, and waved him over. 

“Buck, you didn’t tell me you had such a lovely neighbor!”

Darcy giggled, totally smitten by that no-good geriatric’s _aw shucks_ charm. 

Bucky wanted to die--but not before he took Steve down first.

He sat next to Steve and grimaced. Darcy looked even more beautiful than when they’d first met. Her brown hair shined in the afternoon sun that filtered through the curtains of the living room windows( _what products did she use?!)_ and her pale cheeks were flushed pink from laughter. She was grinning as she told Steve about Jane and Bruce’s science benders, and Bucky’s eyes were glued to the slight gap between her two front teeth. Her teeth were even and pearly-white, and he wondered if she'd bite his lip when kissing-

_Uh-oh._

This wasn’t just discomfort- Bucky had assumed that his avoidance of Darcy had been rooted in his own awkwardness around new people, but he _knew_ this feeling. 

This was something far worse than new people or large crowds or poor sight-lines for a life-long sniper. 

This was a fucking _crush._

He was _so_ screwed. 

Darcy’s lips were painted a berry-pink that day, and Bucky could scarcely hear her words, he was so distracted by her mouth’s movements. Steve had to pinch him to get him to respond to Darcy’s basic questions, and eventually he escaped to his room claiming a headache. Steve rolled his eyes, but Darcy didn’t seem to notice, and continued gossiping with Steve about the woman that Bruce Banner had invited to the facility that week (rumor had it that she turned green too). 

Bucky flung himself onto his California King bed and groaned. 

  


_Fuck._

\----

Later that day, after a long bath and a Skype session with Shuri and a charcuterie platter that he _did not_ share with his erstwhile roommate, Bucky ventured out of the apartment. Steve was off, god-knew-where, and it was a bit of relief, being alone.

Sam has asked him while they were in Nevada if he needed some space from Steve, and out of loyalty, Bucky had immediately rejected the notion-

But Sam knew Steve, and more importantly, he knew the Bucky who had emerged over the past few months. Sam had taught the former assassin more about being human than he would ever know, and in his gut, Bucky knew that he wouldn’t be able to live with Steve forever. They were with each other til the end of the line, but he needed his bath-time.

And if he was going to use decades of resilience and fine-honed will power to eradicate his crush on Darcy, he needed Steve _gone_.

Steve had used to be the loser, for fuck’s sake, and now he was the man with a million stories of him romancing Peggy. Even with the woman gone, God rest her soul, Steve had become one of _those_ married people, with their well-meaning advice and sincere suggestions for finding _the one_.

Bucky was still figuring out who he was. He needed time, and space, and hummus--no meddling from friends necessary. 

Tired of lying on his stomach, Bucky straightened out so his back was supported by his memory-foam pillows. Grabbing his phone from its charger, he opened up a new text message to Sam--but there was already an unread message there.

**Buckaroo, want me to take custody of Grandpa Steve for a few days? You’ve been quiet lately- bet you need some peace from Captain Loudmouth. Let me know!**

Bucky sent a fervent prayer of thanks to the universe, and frantically typed out his response.

**I would sincerely appreciate it. Despite your truly terrible personality, Wilson, you are tolerable at times. Thank you.**

**\---**

After Sam picked up Steve, Bucky took the _longest_ bath, and he watched a documentary about Italian cheeses, and he learned how to make pesto at home. He performed so many acts of self-care in one day that he fell asleep at 7 PM with a humidifier gently misting the air in his room with eucalyptus-scented vapor.

The next day, he woke up to the feeling of something…soft, yet sharp(?) ambling about on his torso. 

He realized that some kind of tiny quadruped was scrabbling across his bare chest, and Bucky tamped down the instinct to leap out of bed and into a defensive position.

Slowly, Bucky opened his eyes and saw that a tiny lump had ventured under his covers. Gingerly, Bucky lifted his comforter. A flash of orange zoomed towards him and Bucky jumped out of bed. 

“Like your present, Buck?”

Steve leaned on his doorway (what was up with Steve and doing that?) and sipped from what appeared to be a Starbucks Frappe (when did he start drinking those?). It seemed like Sam had bought him some new pants, because he looked less like Mr. Rogers (that show had helped him a lot in the early days) and more like a dapper George Clooney-type. 

The kitten mewled indignantly at being ignored, so Bucky carefully sat on the edge of his bed. It was a very _small_ creature, one that could easily get lost for hours if it didn’t have a bell around its neck. At the moment, it had begun a perilous journey to climb Bucky’s leg. Bucky ignored the tiny pinpricks of pain from the kitten’s claws, and instead turned his attention to the friend he’d definitely kicked out yesterday for a _break_ from this kind of shit. 

“Really, Steven? This is how you repay me for my hospitality?”

Steve chuckled and clucked his tongue. “What, you don’t like Miss Ginger? Sam and I found her for free at a farmer’s market yesterday, and I was just thinking about you rattling around all alone here. I thought you’d like a new friend.”

The kitten had somehow made her way to Bucky’s shoulder, and was licking his face with her scratchy little tongue. He was fucked. 

“Her name’s Ginger?”

Steve shook his head, and sat next to Bucky. “This is _Miss_ Ginger, Bucky, and she’d thank you to remember it. She is, according to the owner, a sassy little lady with personality for days. And now, if you’ll have her, she can be yours with a small adoption fee and some vet visits. I know I’m an annoying ass, Bucky, but I think you’re ready to start taking care of others. You can’t be scared of human connection forever, but in the meantime, here’s a furry connection to get you started.”

Bucky ignored the sudden mist near his eyes and picked up Miss Ginger instead. She fit in his metal palm comfortably--so comfortably, in fact, that she circled his hand twice and then curled up in a ball. Within minutes, his sensors could pick up the tiny vibrations of her chest as she purred in her sleep. Bucky brought the sleeping kitten to his chest, and cupped her with both hands. She felt warm on his bare skin, and it grounded him spectacularly, even quicker than a hot bath or a scented candle. 

Steve stood (slowly, Bucky noticed, and with care) and gently patted Bucky’s shoulder. 

“I went back to Peggy thinking I was ready to be a husband. She showed me within days that I had so much baggage--so many things that would keep our love from being enough. I had to heal before I could be anyone of use to Peg. I’ll always be grateful to her for making me do the work first. It made our marriage strong, Buck. You could use that kind of strong. One day, maybe. Start with the kitten first--you’ll see.”

Bucky couldn’t see, really. He couldn’t have known then that behind the veneer of wisdom and sagacity was a plan, a plan so half-baked and stupid (Steve Rogers, master tactician everyone) that it was sure to cause Bucky endless suffering and pain. He also couldn’t see that this plan, like so many of Steve’s plans, would save the day despite its many flaws. 

For the time being, Bucky let the kitten lay on his chest. Their hearts beat in-sync, and the sensation felt like meditation. The unquiet in Bucky’s brain dissipated until all that was left was _breathing_ , and being present. 

Maybe Steve had the right idea. An emotional support kitten would be good for Bucky. 


	5. PhD in Catsitting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane's just trying to get shit done- it's not her fault the universe keeps flinging obstacles her way. Still, she's made it this far with a hot neighbor, an apple that she's pretty sure will let her live forever, and a guaranteed guest-spot on Darcy's popular YouTube channel. Who's to say things aren't coming up roses for Jane?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is mostly Jane's POV but it all leads up to our darling Buckaroo! And we get to know more about dear Miss Ginger! Steve isn't here this chapter (he makes me sad when I write him so I took a break)!!! And more Darcy!
> 
> Also, in case you wanted to know...

Dr. Jane Foster was _tired_ of her work being interrupted by terrifying, inconvenient, Earth-shattering events. Whether she was hurtling in a van towards a crash site in Puente Antiguo with Erik and Darcy or dealing with an infinity stone infecting her very being, she was always having to stop her very important work, and it _pissed her off_ _._

After London, Jane had accepted that life was going to throw curve balls her way, and was resigned to just deal with them like she always had. 

(Dealing meant ignoring any burgeoning trauma, and focusing on the work in front of her.)

As long as she had her work and her spectrometer and her Darcy, she'd be just fine. 

Fine was a subjective term, one that could mean many things to different people.

For Jane, fine meant that she could bury her head in her work with little to no distraction. 

It meant that she could forget everything but the data, the points on the charts that meant so much _more_ than merestars in the sky, in galaxies light years away from their tiny blue Earth.

Fine meant that she could smile when Darcy told stupid dad-jokes and forced her to eat semi-regular meals.

Fine meant that she could block out memories of the strange pulsing of power that coursed through her veins when the Aether had infected her, even years after leaving London.

Fine was watching Thor throwing himself into danger again and again, knowing that he was a god, he was (maybe?) immortal, and that he'd always keep his word and return to her.

Jane was F-I-N-E.

And then Thor told her he was leaving Midgard to search for more Infinity Stones, which was fine, he'd given her a couple of days heads up. 

She tried coping, with lots of kissing and sex and heart-to-hearts. She did her best to ignore the way her heart clenched in pain at the thought of Thor's imminent departure, and instead focused on getting a daring new haircut and a pair of overalls (neither look flattered her, but Thor smiled at her like she was emerging from the sea foam like Boticelli's Venus herself when she showed him). 

It would have been _fine_ , except for the fact that the hairdresser, damn him, had noticed a few white hairs at Jane's temple. And normally, that would have been _fine_ , except that she was only 34, and she'd almost died a couple of times, and she was in love with a man who had no foreseeable date of expiration--unlike her, with her white hairs and her imminent death.

The white hairs were cute, honestly. She liked them, and wouldn't have given them a second thought, except for the fact that she was never, _ever,_ going to be able to keep up with the life Thor led. As a god of Asgard, as a King of Asgard, Thor could never slow down enough for Jane to keep up. She would fade long before Thor would ever know the symptoms of aging, and that was too cruel a future to condemn herself to. 

She _loved him_ , goddammit, and she knew that she would always love him, but she also knew that she would die one day. Jane was a scientist, and her numbers rarely lead her astray... so she knew, deep in her heart, that while she may consider Thor to be the love of _her_ life, she may not be the only love for him, because he'd probably live forever, and move on from her, the tiny human who'd hit him with her van.

It was a statistically sound presumption to make, after all.

The idea of being a blip in Thor's preternaturally long life seemed impossibly unfair, and Jane blamed it all on her hairdresser's eagle eyes.

And so, the night before Thor was to depart on his search for Infinity Stones in a galaxy far, far away, Jane made love to her beloved one final time.

She memorized the divots of his muscled chest, the dips and planes of his stomach. She pressed kisses to his cheeks, his shoulders, his neck.

She made him shudder in ecstasy once, twice, three times, and the fourth time she reached for him, he gently redirected her searching hand to his heart, and pressed it there. 

"Dear heart, what is it you do not say aloud?" The timbre of his voice rumbled through her body and she felt like she was going to die if she moved a muscle away from his orbit.

Her heartbeat sped up, and she knew he'd be able to feel that, so she tried to affect a nonchalant tone, but then she thought about lying next to a youthful, hard-bodied Thor as a soft, frail old woman,and then Jane was very _not fine_ , as her eyes spilled over without warning.

Her body strangely still thrummed with pleasure as she told Thor that she loved him with every atom in her body, but couldn't bear to not spend forever with him. Thor's bright eyes dimmed then, and a shadow passed over his face as he listened to her weep and babble about her fears of white hairs she couldn't hide and time she couldn't extend.

After her words were spent, Thor kissed her slowly, searching her lips with his own for some kind of confirmation thatJane couldn't provide, not with her heart so worn out with fear and insecurity. He asked her again and again, "Are you sure you cannot wait and see?" but Jane was beyond listening. She'd made her choice to free Thor from her brief, inconsequential existence. It was the right thing to do.

They had fallen onto the bed early that night as lovers, and spent the night together fucking like rabbits, and then went their separate ways at dawn as two people who loved each other, but couldn't stay together (at least the way Jane saw it).

Jane went straight to the labs with Thor's sweat still drying on her body, and logged onto her laptop to accept an offer to guest lecture at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. She copied Darcy on the email, and then went back to her apartment. Thor was gone, though the smell of leather and ozone mingled in the air like faded incense. Jane made it to her bathroom, and succeeded in stripping off her dirty jeans and faded plaid button-down before stepping into the shower. The water was almost too hot for her to stand it, but Jane could hardly feel the pain once she started to sob. 

* * *

It felt like hours before she wrapped herself in a towel and stumbled into her bedroom. She felt groggy and tender, and wanted nothing more than to sleep for a dozen hours before packing for Copenhagen. Jane was ready to do just that when something glittered in her peripheral vision- and she turned to her dresser to see an apple, golden as a Thor's hair, and a note. The towel fell away as Jane lifted the apple with trembling hands. The apple was small but its weight felt substantial in her palm. Jane glanced at the note, and felt a stab in her chest at the sight of Thor's archaic script. The flowing letters simply read,

"Your life may seem short in your eyes, but I look at you and see infinity. Perhaps this may provide you with the same clarity that I am blessed with. As ever, the choice is yours. With eternal love, Thor." 

Yeah, Jane was _fine._ And Denmark was supposed to be nice this time of year. She'd deal.

\----

After coming back from the Blip, Jane retrieved the apple from a vault in a bank in Copenhagen proper. She was shocked that it was still there (talk about a secure banking system) but was comforted by its weight in her hand.

She and Darcy had been gathering data on the different ways that the frigid climate of Narsarsuaq impacted magnetic readings in the region when they'd been dusted. Jane had been so immersed in parsing through the readings on her StarkPad that she didn't notice Darcy was gone until she heard a soft thud--turning, she found the spectrometer lying on the snowy ground, covered in a strange sort of ashy-dust. Jane opened her mouth to call for her friend, but she somehow couldn't make the words come out. She saw the vast expanse of snow one more time, and then- _blackness._

The time that followed seemed to ebb and flow like a wave, and for the life of her, Jane could not understand where she went or what she saw while dusted. She couldn't find Darcy, wherever she was, and she wasn't able to make out whether she was surrounded by trillions of souls or simply by herself, a single soul floating through an amber-colored void. 

All she knew was that one moment she was simply nowhereand then she _was_ , she was somewhere, gloriously cold and bright and overwhelming. Darcy was there too, coughing and sobbing all at once. Jane scrabbled on all fours to get to her, to wrap her arms around Darcy who was shaking, not from cold but from emotion, from _panic_. They both wore their full gear, and were protected from the elements, but Jane knew they had to get back home, posthaste. 

Thus, Jane and Darcy survived the blip, although it took a bit of work for them to make their way to the dock they'd arrived at... before. (She didn't know it had been 5 years, and wasn't that a mindfuck, realizing that she was _40_ , that her body hadn't aged but technically she had, in absentia). 

It took some doing to get to a shop with internet, but it seemed as though the whole world was waking from a long, exhausted sleep, and everyone was excited and willing to help. Other people were _coming back_ and all Jane could think about was whether or not Thor is okay. Darcy managed to plug her phone in and in a moment logged in to check her boss' bank account. All of Jane's money and savings were intact- her debit card wasn't even expired yet, thanks be to Odin, so Darcy booked two flights to Copenhagen without asking twice.

The flight back was strange- flight attendants were warm but distracted. The airport had been strangely empty, running on what seemed like a skeleton crew and sheer force of will.

Jane tried to imagine what had happened to Earth in five years, and immediately gave up- the possibilities frightened her, and besides, she had more pressing matters to attend to.

Darcy was withdrawn and quiet, two words that had never been used in reference to the young woman prior to that moment. Jane didn't press, choosing instead to hold her friend's hand and squeeze periodically. 

* * *

As soon as they landed, Jane used Darcy's phone to attempt to call her mom in England (who picked up, _thank the gods in all the realms_ , she picked up, and when Jane said "Mom, it's me," Linda Foster screamed) while Darcy hailed them a taxi. The streets of Copenhagen were emptier than she remembered, and more people were walking than driving. She noticed the boarded up windows and black-out curtains marking otherwise cheery businesses, and wondered what exactly had transpired since she'd been gone. 

The cabbie had been kind, and helped them find a place for people like them- people who'd _returned_ from nowhere to a sober new Earth. It was a kind of halfway house, a place where she and Darcy took stock of their families and their friends and what was left of their abandoned lives. They read from a generic pamphlet about the strange Blip, and Jane barely skimmed it before throwing it away- this whole thing _stank_ of SHIELD and the Avengers and their regularly-scheduled programmed bulsshit. She'd find out the truth eventually. 

Despite all of the trouble, Jane felt more than fine- she felt _alive._ Something earth-shatteringly significant had occurred, and based on what little she understood, no one knew what exactly had happened. The magnitude of the question made Jane's mouth water with desire- she wanted to _ask questions_ and _find answers_ because nothing, no research mattered except understanding where that amber-void had been and how she'd gotten there, and how she'd gotten back. She was ready to write proposals and fill out grant applications the day after they landed in Copenhagen, but she'd needed to take a moment and pause, because Darcy was _not_ fine.

Her friend was scared of loud noises and struggled to sleep through the night. Her friend avoided reaching out to her family (for fear of what news might meet her at the other end of the line, perhaps), and spent her hours doing _nothing,_ which was very un-Darcy-like behavior.

Darcy was one of the people who experienced what the red-cheeked nurse called PDS (Post-Dusting Shock) and was treated with a mild anti-anxiety medication as well as regular visits with a counselor (god bless universal healthcare). 

Jane let her friend rest and for once, she took over making arrangements for their future. First things first, though- she needed to look into an apple in a vault.

* * *

"Darcy, so help me god, get over here and check on the data output!" 

Jane's eyes were glued to a super-microscope (Stark design, very nice) that held a slide of something quite rare- an actual sample of _dust_ , dust that had once been a person (a chemist to be exact, whose chemist BFF did the science world a favor and delayed their grief long enough to gather the sample in an airtight container). She and Dr. Banner had been hard at work for the last two months, examining the whats and the whys behind the Blip. That day, she was examining the chemical makeup of the dust, and was finding elements she'd never seen before, which meant she had to break down the data before she could hand it over to Bruce for examination and further discussion.

Darcy, on the other hand, had been busy editing a new video for her fast-growing YouTube channel, "So You Survived the Blip". It had started out as a jokey coping mechanism, with 2 minute videos detailing the odd experiences of coming back to one's life after five years of nada. Jane liked the videos, and was happy to see her best friend slowly return to her confident former self. 

Now, after publishing five videos that explored the minutiae of life post-Blip, Darcy had 800,000 subscribers and counting. Jane was proud to see her friend use her god-given gift for social media to actually help people. She'd watched Darcy record a short interview with a reporter from CNN a few weeks ago, and had helped Darcy write a quiz for Buzzfeed about whether or not a person would survive the Blip based on their breakfast sandwich choices. Darcy had stumbled into her niche, and Jane couldn't be happier.

However, science waited for no social media star, and Darcy knew it. She scrambled to check the data on the holoscreen and documented anomalies while Jane smiled as she gazed at the sample again.

Stark Industries had approached her once, many years ago, but Jane had shied away from any work that could cause her to cross paths with Thor, or worse, equipment-stealing SHIELD thugs. It was probably for the best that she'd refused then. Now, she was working with a man who had literally brought back half of the universe with a click of his green fingers. She was getting closer to scratching the surface when it came to understanding Infinity Stones and their effects on human biology. Best of all, she was _safely settled_ away from Thor, who was off on a space gap-year, according to Banner. It was heartbreaking to hear about her former lover's decline and depression, but she was happy to see that he was working on it (millions of miles away from her, thank Odin).

Her apple was safe, sitting unblemished on a shelf next to her doctorate degree in her office. 

Darcy thought the apple was a memento from Asgard, and Jane did not correct her. It was better that way. Instead, Jane focused on finding answers to her unanswered questions. 

* * *

Two days after moving in, Jane realized that her next door neighbor was a major hottie- and also a WWII veteran. She didn't bother Sergeant Barnes with much more than a wave most days, unlike Darcy (who had loudly extolled the virtues of her neighbor's ass for days after their arrival). He _was_ handsome, undeniably so, but Jane could smell the brokenness on that boy from a mile away, so she stuck to waves and nods in the halls of the facility. 

It was a daily routine that only changed one evening a few weeks after their arrival. Darcy was visiting her dad and grandparents in Minnesota. Her mom had died during the 5 years, and Jane hadn't been able to watch her friend's face crumple after hearing that over speakerphone, so she'd left her alone, and didn't push Darcy when she didn't say anything about it afterwards.

It was only around 7 PM when Jane heard a knock at her door- and stupidly, she wondered if Darcy had come home a day early. She put down her scientific journal on quantum-realm travel and cracked the door open. There stood Bucky Barnes, holding a small plastic crate by its handle. 

The man was dressed in all-black battle gear, and seemed frazzled beyond belief for someone who was known for being an unflappable sniper and assassin. 

"Dr. Foster, I am so sorry to ask this, but I'm being called out on a mission and my kitten's got an upset tummy, so I can't leave her alone!" Jane tried to process all of the information that sentence provided her with (did former Soviet assassins use the word tummy often?), but couldn't quite understand quickly enough. 

"You want me to... catsit?"

Barnes nodded, and Jane could see that this cat was important to his sanity, so she smiled and took the crate by the handle. The crate's occupant meowed loudly, and Jane watched a tiny orange paw stick out of an air-hole. 

"What's its name?" 

Barnes marginally relaxed, and handed Jane a previously-unseen folder with a flyer for a vet's office as well as vaccination papers.

"This is Miss Ginger. She's not quite fixed yet, but she can use a litter box (Jane's eyes widened as Barnes stepped aside to show a rather large pile of _stuff_ on the floor that he'd somehow hidden behind his muscular frame) and take care of her business. I just can't leave her alone- she's too little!" 

Jane slowly nodded, and then opened her door all the way to allow him to deposit his small repository of cat-care products in her living room. She could hear voices coming from the earpiece hidden behind his long chestnut hair, and Jane tutted. "I've got this. My roomie loves cats, and will be thrilled to watch over Miss Ginger. You go... I'll take care of this little one." 

Sergeant Barnes stuck a (metal!) finger into one of the air holes and scratched his kitten's chin. Jane stifled a laugh at the very loud purr that immediately emanated from the crate, and watched the man quietly settle everything with care. 

A few moments passed before Barnes glanced at her again, grinning shyly. "I owe ya. Seriously. Thank you for watching over her... Ginger's important to me."

Jane nodded again, and watched Barnes leave her apartment. She bit her lip, puzzling over the man who'd just handed over what seemed to be his emotional support kitten to someone he barely knew. Was he really fit for battle? Jane heard a rustling noise come from the crate, and turned to release her temporary roommate from her cage. 

"Miss Ginger, is it?"

The tiny kitten ambled out without a trace of fear, and Jane watched as it sniffed her apartment thoroughly. 

Without warning, an image of Sergeant Barnes popped into her mind again, and Jane thought about what it must be like, to be so desperately out of time. She'd been with Darcy when the UN bombing had occurred, and had read the leaked SHIELD/Hydra dossiers Darcy had shoved under her nose. It was a glimpse into what Darcy must have gone through every time Jane had been on a science bender, but it also gave Jane a modicum of understanding for what her neighbor had been through over the course of his long, long life. 

It was sad, seeing so many lines etched so deep around eyes that should have been sparkling with youth. Jane felt sorry for Darcy then, who was so clearly infatuated with the former soldier... and she also could see why Darcy waxed poetic about the man's ass. Just like Helen of Troy, Barnes' ass was beautiful enough to launch a thousand ships. 

Ginger agreed, and climbed on top of Jane's foot to claw at the hem of her jeans.

* * *

Darcy was _thrilled_ to meet Miss Ginger, and was even more thrilled to find out who Miss Ginger's owner was. Jane tried not to feed her friend's excitement too much, but it was infectious. Authentic joy was in short supply those days, and cat sitting for one's crush was a pretty big deal, if she was honest about it. 

Besides, she sensed that Darcy's attraction wasn't as one-sided as it seemed. Barnes had called her (how he'd gotten her number, she'd never know) a few days ago and asked about his kitten. She could hear the anxiety in his voice before she transferred them to video-call. The man with soot and dried blood on his face softened with love as he watched his kitten enthusiastically tear up one of of Jane's old published papers from before Thor. He'd asked a few brief questions about Ginger's health and seemed ready to end the call when Darcy got back from her run. 

"Oi, Jane! Who ya talking with?"

Before Jane could rescue the good sergeant, Darcy grabbed the phone (boundaries were not a thing between them anymore) and her jaw dropped instantly. "Oh! Bucky! Barnes! Uh, nice cat! How are you?"

Jane winced. This was worse than she'd thought. 

She listened to Barnes awkwardly tell her that he was "fine, just tired," and then he excused himself and ended the call. Darcy's mouth was still open, though horror seemed to be the primary emotion she was experiencing.

Picking up her abandoned journal, Jane left the living room to avoid the inevitable. 

She read for a few moments before she heard an impassioned "FUCK!" and a thudding noise that must have been Darcy flinging herself on the sofa. 

Jane grinned, and then went back to her reading. Quantum-realm travel was _fascinating_ , and the author, Dr. Antonio Lang, really knew his stuff. 

\---

When Barnes called her a week later to let her know that he was almost back home, Jane asked if he would let her bring Ginger's things back to his place before he landed. Jane had gotten into the habit of sending Barnes a few pictures of Ginger a day. The kitten was smart and funny and far too good at distracting Jane from her work. Darcy spent a lot of time with the kitten while Jane worked without her, and a few of the pictures she sent featured Darcy snuggling the fluffy orange cat in her arms.

Jane didn't have to send anything, but she could tell from the way that Barnes would thank her that the pictures helped steady the man, and who could deny the war hero that small gift? Besides, if he also got to see how much Darcy loved _his kitty_ , maybe he'd love on _Darcy's_ kitty too. It was a shaky foundation for a plan to get her friend laid, but Jane could see the potential. 

When she let herself into his apartment, Jane first went about airing out the place. There were cleaners at the facility, but Barnes didn't seem to have them scheduled to visit his place.

After a thorough dusting and vacuuming, she replaced the cat supplies as best as she could. She avoided snooping (though she sniffed all 17 of Barnes' three-wick candles for far too long) and mostly focused on getting the place fit for someone who'd been fighting bad guys for over two weeks.

Darcy had overheard Jane's conversation and had immediately declared that she was going to roast a chicken. It was almost cute watching her friend stuff her hand up a chicken's nether regions with handfuls of herb-butter, if it weren't so pathetic. 

Miss Ginger agreed that human mating behaviors were odd, and groomed Jane's sock-clad left foot with relish until Jane picked her up, cradled her in her arms, and quickly left her apartment to return her to her owner's place. 

\---

Bucky was _tired._ It was the ass-crack of dawn, he smelled like a Malaysian sewer, and he hadn't done his skincare routine in over a fortnight. Worst of all was the ache in his chest every time he thought of Miss Ginger, who he had only just fallen in love with.

He hadn't considered missions before agreeing to adopt her, but Bucky was sure that he could work out a better contingency plan than dumping his cat on the nice astrophysicist next door. 

He'd thought he could rely on Steve to handle the cat-sitting, but Steve had gone further upstate to visit with Pepper and her daughter. It was a visit that Bucky wanted nothing to do with, thank you very much, but it also meant that he'd had to gird his loins and risk his barely-contained crush being exposed to Darcy Lewis when he knocked on her door, squirming kitten in tow. 

Bucky murmured a prayer of thanks when the door opened to reveal the tiny scientist who smiled at him in the hallway each morning. It was simple dropping Ginger off after that, although he'd had a difficult moment when he said goodbye to his little friend. 

Still, the sound of Sam telling him to get his ass in the quinjet motivated Bucky enough to leave his Ginger. From there, he was in mission-mode, and he wouldn't have had much to focus on besides from the mission were it not for his tiny roommate back home.

He'd even risked calling Foster from a secure line so he could check on them, and was glad he'd done so until the video chat was interrupted by a familiar gap-toothed smile. He'd ended the call as politely and swiftly as possible, but the damage was done. Darcy's flushed, smiling face had made his heart feel so light, he'd almost forgotten that he was camped out in an abandoned factory in Kuala Lampur. Then the panic had set in, and he'd had to get away. 

* * *

Limping slightly, Bucky entered his home to find that the lights were already on and it smelled... like cooking? The aroma of garlic, and something that might have been rosemary wafted into his nose as he slowly dropped his bag on the foyer floor. A familiar scratching sound distracted him from his nose, and Bucky knelt just in time for Ginger to violently scale his torso so she could perch on his shoulder.

A knot in his chest loosened as Ginger busily licked the grime from his neck. _Home_ meant good smells and good touches from his kitten. It also apparently meant that someone would clean his apartment for him (a security risk, but he could guess who was responsible). 

"She missed you quite a bit." Bucky concealed his flinch as Jane Foster came into the room with a cup of tea and a plate of snacks in her hands. 

"Thank you so, so much Dr. Foster. I can't thank you enough." 

Jane handed Bucky the steaming mug of oolong tea and set the plate down on a nearby coffee table. She sat down and watched as Ginger swung from Bucky's hair like a furry orange Tarzan, and laughed at the kitten's indignant meows when Bucky removed her from his head. 

"Miss Ginger has been a wonderful house guest. She caught lots of spiders and groomed my socks daily, so I figure she earned her keep." 

Bucky slowly straightened up and sat near Jane, sipping from the mug carefully. 

"Seriously, though. Did you need to restock her food or anything? I want to pay you back, I really am grateful-"

Jane waved her hand impatiently and shushed him.

"It's okay! Sergeant Barnes, it was a pleasure to help you out. I don't mind it, and since we aren't traveling at the moment, you can ask us to watch her anytime you need."

_Us._

_Shit._

"Oh, and please thank Da-Ms. Lewis for her help too! I appreciate it."

Jane's eyes widened just enough for Bucky to notice and kick himself- how the fuck had he ever operated as a super spy? Fortunately, Jane took pity on him and showed him the roast chicken and potatoes Darcy had made for him ( _Darcy had made him food!)_ before heading out. She stood in the door frame for a moment, and Bucky waited for her to walk away. 

She didn't, though. Instead, she put a gentle hand on the door frame near his shoulder and asked him a question he didn't hear at first. 

"I said, would you like to visit my lab tomorrow? I'm going through some old research on the Einstein-Rosenbridge theory and could use a virgin pair of ears to hear my ideas."

Bucky narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "Who told you?"

Jane looked genuinely confused, before she shook her head and laughed.

"No one told me that you were into science! I've seen you hang out with Dr. Banner more than any other Avenger, and he's always happy to explain what he's working on. I'm just looking for someone who can bear to listen to me talk about astrophysics, since Darcy's got to work on her own stuff tomorrow anyways. It helps, to have someone to talk to when you're working"

Within another minute, Bucky had somehow agreed to not only visit her at her labs, but also to bring sandwiches made out of his leftover chicken. Ginger chirped at his feet as he shut the door and made his way to his bedroom with his bag. 

Somehow, he'd just gotten himself a gig helping out the good doctor in her lab. It sounded like a nice way to spend a day, without punching or talking to Sam. Ginger agreed, and led him to the kitchen, where she clambered onto the table using his leg as a ladder. Bucky watched her "sneak" towards the chicken, and only felt slightly bad as he lifted the platter and moved it to the counter. 

_Darcy had made him a roast chicken_. Memories of his ma's yellow apron flooded his mind unbidden, and he indulged in those thoughts as he made himself a plate and began to eat.

\---

Later that night, he dreamt of Darcy, wearing his ma's yellow apron over a sundress. Her hair was wild and curly, her eyes sparkled, and she was laughing. He slept well that night.

BONUS: I imagine Miss Ginger looks a bit like this... 

image source: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjx5IuB1KvlAhUBGKwKHfU0Dl0QjRx6BAgBEAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fanimalcenter.org%2Fnews%2Fkitten-happy-hour&psig=AOvVaw38c6461gU-fr_dFTMs2q4M&ust=1571688889059074


	6. We Can't Let the Purple Asshole Win

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky makes a new friend WITHOUT having to punch/maim/shoot anyone! It's a Thanksgiving miracle!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: for mild discussion of grief
> 
> Hey y'all! Thank you for your sweet comments! Life is a kick in the ass (as usual), but writing this little fic makes me smile.

James Buchanan Barnes was having a _very_ good couple of weeks. He'd spent some days in Hong Kong, helping protect freedom fighters from the authoritarian state that sought to crush their movement (he'd taught a group of 17-year-old kids how to assemble some nice, old-fashioned molotov cocktails, because fuck the police). After Hong Kong, he spent some time in Germany, rooting out some decrepit Hydra agents who, until Bucky showed up, were working as members of the German parliament (and wasn't that a hoot, testifying against his former abusers in court as a free citizen? It almost made sweating through his suit feel okay). After that, he'd spent a day in London visiting a couple of post-dusting support centers that specialized in uniting families separated by the snap, and then he'd gone home to New York, tired and spent, but happy that he was able to help make the world a better place through means other than killing and punching. 

There was a lot to look forward to at home--his bed with its satin sheets, and Miss Ginger, of course. The kitten-cuddles that he had to catch up on would have weighed heavily on his mind, but he wasn't too worried, because Miss Ginger had been in very good hands while he was off-site.

Jane had been true to her word, and happily agreed to watch Ginger when he stopped by a week before his trip. She'd invited him inside, introduced him to the wonders of "The Great British Baking Competition", and before he knew it, 4 hours had passed and Bread Week was over. Jane was asleep, head tipped back and leaning on Bucky's vibranium shoulder.

To his total and complete surprise, Bucky had made a _friend_ all by himself. He was quite proud of himself, since this new friend had _not_ been acquired by rescuing them from being beaten to death by neighborhood bullies or fighting by their side in a world-ending catastrophe or by aiding and abetting them during an international manhunt. 

No, his new friend was none other than his neighbor and science-buddy/cat-sitter, Dr. Jane Foster.

* * *

It had been an utter shock to Bucky when Jane showed up to his apartment two days after she'd watched Ginger for the first time, holding a Hulk thermos under one arm and a tupperware container under the other. She didn't seem to care that it was 12 AM and that he was in his pajamas, because as she'd put it, there were "meteors coming down like glitter from the sky" and "it would be rude to make her watch it alone". When Bucky had inquired about Darcy's absence, Jane had shrugged towards their shared apartment and muttered something about "inconsiderate social media stars" and their "unpredictable uploading schedules", none of which made any sense to Bucky.

Still slightly bewildered, he tucked his feet into his slippers, pulled on his favorite NASA hoodie, and followed Jane to a rooftop garden he'd never noticed in all of his time there at the facility. 

Jane had sat them down on a blanket that she'd clearly laid out earlier, along with the tupperware box full of cookies that smelled of cinnamon. Unsure of himself, Bucky sat at the edge of the blanket with his knees tucked in. Unaware of Bucky's anxiety, Jane sprawled out (he noticed her Thor pajamas and chose to remain silent, not wanting to bring up a person's ex-boyfriend even if they were printed on their night-wear) and began to point out constellations. She chattered unconsciously, and Bucky listened, slowly relaxing enough to nibble on a cookie. Dr. Foster was fascinating, and he sat there for what felt like hours as she spun tale after tale about her wild adventures as an astrophysicist.

He laughed when she told him about hitting Thor with her van, and then sat there, thinking about the extraordinary coincidences that led to their paths intertwining.

When the meteors began to flash across the night sky with increasing frequency, Jane convinced Bucky to lie on his back. They were silent for a time then, listening only to the sounds of nature. Bucky felt something inside of himself loosen- a tightness that felt like a spring in his chest, always coiled and primed to strike at anyone who got too close too quickly. The tiny woman next to him was utterly nonthreatening in her tattered band tee and unlaced hiking boots, but Bucky could feel an intensity inside her that reminded him of Steve, oddly enough, and that made him want to trust her more. She'd cared for his cat without asking for anything in return, and that made her a good person, but he'd never thought that she could be more than a kind neighbor. 

As he watched the meteors blink across the sky in flashes of brilliant light, his mouth opened of its own accord. He waited for the familiar panic to set in, but there was just a desire to keep going, to _share_ , and as the night sky twinkled above, Bucky began to speak. 

"Me n' the Howlies used to watch the skies like this when we were trekking the Western Front. I remember in 44', right before we got captured in Azzano, we'd had to use the stars to guide us back to base. Falsworth had gotten us lost while spouting some BS about using moss on the trees to navigate, and next thing we knew we didn't know where the hell we were or where we were going..."

He went on, talking about his men, about Azzano, about the science that was used to change him. He talked about things only Steve had known, like how shocked he'd been by his best friend's new body, and how his appetite had become something monstrous, how the skin on his palms would grow back in minutes after he'd scrape it scaling a pine tree for his sniper's nests. Jane listened quietly and intently as he talked about going to the World's Fair in 1942 and seeing Howard Stark there, trying to convince the world that they'd all have flying cars in no time. Bucky had paused, and then commented mildly on how strange his life was, how mind-fuckingly small the world was, that he'd been there that day in 1942, cheering for Stark, thinking that the man was one crazy bastard. Fast-forward almost 50 years, and he'd murdered the poor man and his wife. What a fucking bizarre connection.

Jane didn't say a word, but she squeezed his hand, so Barnes kept going, despite the voice in his brain that was screaming in disbelief, because these were the thoughts he _did not think_ , let alone speak out loud to a stranger. Jane didn't seem fazed, though, so he could admit out loud how angry he was that he'd had so much of his life taken from him. He could confess that he was scared of the rest of his life, so vast and seemingly endless, and given the nature of his supersolider biochemistry, he had real reason to fear the looming future. Bucky showed Jane the things that he couldn't bear to show anyone (with the exception of Steve, and that was only some of the time). There were some secrets he kept, like his best friend's presence in their current timeline, but for the most part, he let it all out for Jane and the night sky to witness.

After almost an hour of talking, Bucky just... stopped. His voice was hoarse, unused as he was to speaking for long periods of time. Jane didn't say anything for a few minutes. 

Bucky could smell a light citrus scent coming off of her skin, and he absently wondered about the kind of moisturizer Jane used to keep her skin so luminous. 

Finally, Jane spoke, and Bucky could hear her voice wavering as she measured her words, weighing them before saying anything out loud.

"I broke up with the love of my life because... because I'm scared of the future too. Thor... well you can imagine what his life-span looks like in comparison to mine. What do you do, when you feel like a tiny satellite in orbit of this huge celestial being? How do I live up to that?"

"I didn't take you for someone who doubted themselves, Dr. Foster." (And that was big for Bucky, to say what he thought without panicking about it first). 

Jane huffed, and turned to face him. 

"I'm talking about living, literally. I'm going to be 40 soon, Barnes, and Thor's coming up on his 2500th birthday. I can't imagine a life without him, but I also don't think I can pay the price of staying with him for as long as _he_ lives. How could it possibly work? It's a fucking mess, and I don't want to think about it too hard, because there's nothing I can really do about it anyways, bar accepting the burden of an immortal existence. He's off-planet anyways, and it sounds like it's for good, which is really great and really fucking awful at the same time."

Barnes winced, and didn't say much more after that. 

The meteors winked at them both, as if telling them the answers to all of their dilemmas in a language too elevated for either of them to understand. 

They finished the cookies and lay out there till the sky turned the palest of pinks.

Jane folded up her blanket and walked with Bucky back to their apartments. 

Unsure of what to say, Bucky held out a hand for Jane to shake. Grinning wryly, she took his large hand into her own smaller one, and pumped it up and down.

"I think this means we're friends now, Barnes."

Bucky's brain shorted out for a split-second, and then a dawning smile spread across his face. Jane's eyes crinkled with pleasure as he nodded and repeated the phrase "friends now" quietly.

* * *

Being Jane's friend meant being put to work at any given moment, all in the name of science. For Bucky, it meant spending long hours next to Jane in her work-space (wherever that may be) and listening to her talk about the molecular make-up of "sample x", aka the tiny bit of dust that apparently was once the only remains of a scientist named Pranav (who was now back on Earth and eagerly collaborating with Jane on deciphering the mysteries of the Dusting). Bucky didn't always understand what Jane was talking about, but he enjoyed the soothing routine of scientific procedure, and found that an hour of sifting through numbers for one specific data-point quelled his anxieties just as effectively as a soak in his tub.

Since Steve was off doing _something_ _stupid_ with Sam (Bucky didn't know what his idiotic friends were up to, but they had packed a suspicious amount of clothes for a "quick trip upstate to visit some friends", so he assumed the two were off to create a headache for future-Bucky), Bucky found his time divided evenly between his self-care regimen, playing with Miss Ginger, training with Wanda, and spending time with Jane. 

Things seemed to be coming up Bucky Barnes, and his days became fuller, with more positive human interaction than he'd experienced even before falling off of the train all those decades ago. 

The only thing standing between Bucky and the most happiness he'd known in 70 years was an obstacle of 5 feet and 3 inches, with wavy chestnut hair and a gap between her two front teeth. 

More time spent with Jane meant more time spent with Darcy, and Bucky suspected that his reputation as the most effective weapon ever created was going to suffer once the world found out that a pretty dame with a YouTube channel was his personal Trojan Horse. 

She didn't say much to him, probably because she was still embarrassed by the first impression she'd made on Bucky that first day in the elevator (and lord, had Bucky imagined butt-stuff and Darcy in the same thought _quite a bit_ since then, and he couldn't even bring himself to be ashamed of it because _she'd been the one to bring it up_ ). 

Bucky unintentionally lightened Darcy's work-load every time he visited Jane, so Darcy would usually spare a moment to greet him with an awkward wave, hand over a purple clipboard with her to-do list on it, tell Jane "adios, fearless leader!", and then she would scamper off with her laptop and external hard-drive in hand to a quiet corner of the lab, where she would edit videos for several hours on end.

And that was part of the problem too, Darcy's YouTube channel. "So You Survived the Blip" had gained a lot of traction over the last few weeks, ever since Darcy had started uploading on a regular schedule, and with her growing success came Bucky's downfall.

The only thing worse than having an unsuitable crush on a beautiful woman was having an unsuitable crush on a beautiful and talented woman who regularly posted videos of herself eloquently discussing her personal experiences with the dusting (coupled with homemade memes of Thanos and his "genocide gauntlet" as she put it). He couldn't help his desire to get to know her without actually having to _talk to her,_ which for whatever reason seemed impossible according to Bucky's fucked up survivor's reasoning. 

He didn't even know about the channel at first, but one afternoon, he saw Darcy sitting in her usual corner, working doggedly on her laptop, but she was... crying? Quietly and constantly, tears dripped off her nose and onto her woolen gray scarf. Bucky turned back and forth from Darcy to Jane a few times before Jane looked up. 

Jane shook her head and walked over to Bucky. Gently, she wrapped an arm around his shoulder (which was difficult given their height difference) and walked him out of the room and into the open collaboration space nearby. Darcy didn't look up, but Jane waited until they were a respectable distance from the lab before she stopped walking and sighed heavily.

Before the woman could speak, Bucky began to panic out loud.

"Is Darcy okay? She didn't seem okay, she was crying, which I've never seen her do-" Jane put a finger on Bucky's lips and smiled sadly. 

"Oh, she cries, all right. I've never seen her do it so... efficiently, but she does have a lot to cry about, Bucky. Her mom died while we were dusted. Well, to be specific, her mom got sick after Darcy went missing, and never really got better. I'm not sure, but I suspect that Darcy been working on a video about that, and it's been stirring up... all of the feels, as she'd say."

Bucky's mind unhelpfully conjured up an image of Winifred Barnes in a yellow apron, stirring a pot of soup with a baby girl on her hip. 

"She...died of grief?"

Jane shrugged. "We can't be sure. Her dad is older, and has a hard time not being weird around Darcy whenever they spend time together now. She's an only child, and she feels responsible for her mother's death, which is-" 

"That's a load of ripe horseshit, pardon my language." 

Bucky shut his eyes tightly and tried to count his breaths. Once again, he was witness to the awful reality that was the world post-Thanos. Even the Avengers and their miraculous Time Heist couldn't have saved humanity from the emotional devastation of a mass disappearance, followed by a mass reappearance. 

He felt Jane's hand on his (metal) shoulder, rubbing soothing circles with her thumb.

"This seems like it's hitting home for ya, Buck. You okay?"

Bucky laughed, an ugly bark of a laugh, but it did its job and brought him back to baseline. He and Jane returned to the lab, where they worked on compiling new information from Pranav's lab in South Carolina with their own findings, while Darcy continued her work. He watched from the corner of his eye as Darcy absentmindedly wiped her cheeks with her oversized sleeves, never ceasing her work or acknowledging her apparent sorrow. After a couple of hours had passed, Bucky excused himself temporarily. 

When Bucky returned half an hour later, he carried with him a large box of things, which he set up in the collaboration space outside the lab. Steeling himself, he returned to the lab and walked right in front of Darcy, who was finally taking a break from her work to eat the pita chips that he'd brought for them that day. 

Darcy looked up at him and raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. "You good, Barnes?" Her tone was slightly sarcastic, but Bucky could see the hurt bleeding into the sardonic lines of her smile.

Bucky didn't let himself chicken out, and launched into the short speech he had practiced on his way back to the labs. 

"Icantellthatyou'vehadaharddaysoIbroughtGingerovertocheeryouupshe'srightoutside!" 

Darcy and Jane both stood to stare at Bucky, who was staring at his feet and wishing that the ground would swallow him up. An indignant "mrow!" broke the silence, and Bucky couldn't help but laugh at the sight of Miss Ginger strolling into the labs as though she belonged there and was waiting for one of them to let her in. 

Darcy didn't say anything at all, but she did pick Ginger up and let her settle onto her chest. Jane and Bucky watched as Darcy slowly walked out of the lab and sat outside in the collaboration space, where Bucky had set up one of Ginger's play-sets up, along with setting out an assortment of his kitten's favorite toys. They watched for a few more moments through the glass walls. Darcy settled cross-legged on the floor, and Ginger leaped from her arms towards her toys. A quiet giggle filled the air as Ginger attacked Darcy's scarf with more poise than the late Black Widow herself, and Bucky felt a piece of the tension that had filled his chest loosen again. 

Jane's hand was on his shoulder again, though he didn't notice until Jane quietly murmured, "You're a good man, James Barnes."

"I don't know about that, Jane."

Jane punched his arm and shook her head. "You fuckin' hero types. Come here and help me figure out this latest reading, I can't tell if Pranav sent us a photocopy of his notes or of ancient hieroglyphics." 

* * *

That night, as Bucky lay in bed reading to Ginger, his phone vibrated. He stopped reading "Jane Eyre" and picked up his cellphone, staring at the black screen before pressing the home button. The screen lit up with a reminder for his appointment with a representative from the US Department of Veterans Affairs, a couple of emails from LUSH advertising new bath bombs, and a notification from YouTube.

"'So You Survived The Blip' has uploaded a new video!" read the notification, and Bucky stalled for a moment by rubbing Ginger's ear before pressing the link to the video. 

A photo of a smiling woman with permed brown hair and coke-bottle glasses appeared on the screen, accompanied by a quiet and unfamiliar song that sounded haunting to Bucky's ignorant ears. Darcy's voice was shockingly gentle as she narrated the next photo, of the same woman holding a baby with unmistakable blue eyes and chestnut curls. "This, you guys, is gonna be a tough video. You might need to be kind to yourself and skip to one of my happier videos, because today I'm going to do something I haven't been brave enough to do since I returned from the Blip... I'm... I'm going to talk about losing my mom. Her name is... her name was Elizabeth Lewis, she loved power-suits with shoulder pads in 'em, and she died two years after I was dusted. I never got to tell her goodbye, but that's a hard truth that a lot of us are facing, thanks to that purple asshole- sorry mom, purple butthole, Thanos." 

Bucky blinked tears from his own eyes as he continued watching low-quality video clips that had clearly been taken from home videos from Darcy's childhood. The video was short by Darcy's standards, only 9 minutes long, but the ending stopped Bucky's heart. 

Darcy had clearly filmed the closing clip that very day, as she was wearing the same outfit from earlier and was holding a squirming Ginger to her cheeks. 

"Hey guys, I wanted to say thank you to each and every one of you for watching and commenting. I feel really alone some days, and kind of sink into my own grief and self-pity... but then, I remember that we all went through this, and we all lost so much, but in the losing, we also gained each other. I have met some of the best, most kind heroes because of the Blip, from the nurse who helped me through my Post Dusting Shock to the sweet neighbor who saw that I was struggling today and brought me his kitten to cheer me up. And even though I'm still sad, I can see- Ow, dammit Ginger!- I can see that this is a wonderful, brave world. I am surrounded by friends, and that, I think, would make my mom very, very happy. So thanks for watching! And please, remember: don't let your past sorrows keep you from your future happiness. You let that purple asshole win by losing hope! Now say goodbye, Ginger!"

Bucky's hand was clasped to his chest as he watched Darcy wiggle his kitten's paw in a faux-farewell before the autoplay began to load. He shut off his phone and lay down, overwhelmed by the emotional toll of the day. 

Late into the night, as Bucky tossed and turned (to Ginger's disapproval), one thought cycled through his mind on repeat: "Why am I letting fear keep me from my future happiness?".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming up:  
> Steve is back, and he's bringing a whole load of of Peggy memories with him! Also, give a warm welcome to our new Man with a Plan! Sam makes his return with even bigger sideburns and more helpful advice that doesn't involve an animal!


	7. Captain America and Captain America walk into a diner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Steve smiled his stupid mysterious smile again, and Sam prepared himself for the inevitable fuckery that was a Steve Rogers Plan™." 
> 
> or, Captain America and Captain America go on a mildly life-changing road trip (again).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember how Bucky assumed that Sam and Steve's road trip was something stupid?  
> Yeah. This is that roadtrip, punctuated with flashbacks to various moments in Steve's past. It's angsty and emotional folks. TW for discussion of disassociation, depression, and other various mental distress.

-PRESENT DAY-

The car was silent as Sam drove the two Captain Americas back to the Avengers compound. Sam's eyes were focused on the road, his hands were resting loosely on the wheel, but his focus was on his passenger, who hadn't spoken a word in several hours (which for Steve Rogers was _very_ unusual behavior, warranting legitimate panic and concern). He'd considered texting Barnes, but there was no point in upsetting the already unsteady man. 

Sam considered Barnes a friend, despite the fact that he hated his guts, so he did his best to play buffer between him and Steve during the more awkward moments of their reunion. This little field-trip had been the latest in Sam's many attempts to give Barnes the time and space that he needed to adapt to his new world- a new world that until a week ago had been robbed of Steve Rogers. 

The air conditioning whistled quietly when it ran for too long, but the weather was unseasonably hot for October, even for New York. Sam noticed that Steve had turned to look out the car's window. Despite the warmth of the day, Steve still wore a light-jacket and long pants; it was, Sam supposed, the natural thing for a centenarian to do. The idea of Steve as frail and old made Sam's eyes sting, so he blinked fast and returned his focus to the interstate stretching before him. The sun had started to set, and the sky was awash in golds and pinks, the colors that he could picture on the back of his eyelids whenever he dreamed of flying.

They were hours away from the compound, but Sam couldn't bring himself to break the silence. Steve wasn't talking for a good reason, and after what Sam had seen over the past few days, he thought he understood. His friend's life was wrought with the screaming of prisoners of war and the whistling of bombs--noise, frenetic and painful. Silence, sometimes, could be a balm for any wound.

* * *

-2018, after the Blip-

Silence, Steve had learned, was a weapon more accurate than any shield or pistol. He'd wielded it often throughout his long life, on battlefields and in back-alleys and even in ballrooms sparkling with stars. 

Sure, it made people think him stand-offish at times. 

He'd learned to let people assume when he stayed silent in response to their prying, often well-meaning queries about his thoughts and feelings. 

Those who knew him well learned to read his silences; Natasha, in particular, was good at deciphering his entire psyche with a quirk of her eyebrow and a quick scan of his person. She was the one who left him well enough alone when he needed it, and who pushed him the hardest when he needed it the most. 

Silence was a powerful tool in interrogation and an absolute detriment to any relationship (hadn't Peggy taught him that, the first month back? When he wouldn't explain why he kept checking his left fore-arm for a gash that wasn't there, or why he couldn't talk about who he'd been after the ice?). 

Silence, Steve knew, was often a way of pretending to protect others while one was merely protecting themselves. 

Steve's first real silence didn't set in until the Quinjet had left Wakandan airspace that day in 2018. Natasha sat at the cockpit, thought the jet was on autopilot. No one could be trusted to operate any heavy machinery, not knowing what they knew, not having seen what they had seen that day. Thor had taken another jet with Rocket and Rhodey, and Steve was glad to not face any more people than he absolutely had to.

Dust covered them all, even Bruce who had been sheltered in Stark's Hulkbuster armor. Under normal circumstances, Steve would have taken a moment post-battle to wash his face and hands at least--but the dust that coated his fingers and beard was maybe all that remained of...

Bruce left Natasha to pilot for a moment, although Steve's enhanced hearing could pick up the irregularities in the spy's breathing. Natasha, who was never out of breath, even in the heat of battle, was mourning, so Bruce left her to join Steve. He was talking to him, but Steve couldn't hear over the sound of Bucky's voice in his mind. The sound of the train chugging away mingled with his memory of Bucky screaming as he fell--now, he could add the confused "Steve?" and then the quiet whisper of Bucky collapsing into dust before his very eyes to his personal soundtrack of time. 

Steve rubbed his eyes and tried to focus on the scientist's words, but Bruce shook his head wearily. "It's nothing, Steve. You rest."

Kindly, Bruce walked away to a different part of the jet. The voices were gone, but in their absence was a silence.

* * *

-THREE DAYS AGO-

"What are we doing here, Steve? I _know_ we aren't reenacting "Driving Miss Daisy", that is problematic _as hell_." Steve smiled mysteriously, and Sam should have stopped the car right there, because a quiet and mysterious smile was usually the precursor to some really fucked up shit, or a fight- or both, knowing Steve. 

They were speeding down the highway, 8 hours away from Chicago according to Sam's fancy Stark-tech phone, and Sam had no idea why he was headed to the Windy City. He'd been told to "pack light and stay quiet", and Sam obeyed, although not without some complaining. 

It was fun, in a weird way, getting to know this older, wiser Steve. There was a peace to this man that had been missing in the prior, and Sam would bet good money it had to do with the ring on his finger. 

From what he'd read about Peggy Carter, Steve's real adventures had probably began _after_ he defeated Thanos and saved the universe with his squad of superhero BFFs. Hell, the idea of those two together made Sam simultaneously shudder with fear and slight arousal (he had eyes, and he _liked_ his men and women fiery with a side of sass). 

Steve had forced Sam to stop at a diner for lunch, and Sam magnanimously did not say a word when Steve asked for the senior's special, though his gut lurched at the sight of Steve's hand shaking slightly when held the menu up for the waitress to retrieve. 

Steve's super-appetite was intact, thanks be to god, as were his fine motor skills, so Sam stopped worrying about his friend's elderly body and started prying. 

"Steve, you're killing me. I know you bagged the woman of your dreams, and you won't even tell me about your reunion! Did you surprise her with flowers? Did you sing Marvin Gaye to her?"

To Sam's chagrin, Steve did not answer until he was done chewing his huge bite of pancakes. 

Steve lowered his voice and ducked his head down, and Sam leaned in, ready for the _tea._

"Would it shock you to know that I didn't exactly... _plan_ my reunion with Peg?"

Sam looked up to the heavens as Steve chuckled (that troll).

"Why did none of my smoothness rub off on you, Steven? We spent _months_ together in hostels, on trains, and then on the run! I taught you everything! I showed you the entire arsenal!"

Steve laughed harder, but there was something serious in his eyes when he dabbed his mouth with a napkin and resumed his story.

"When I got back to 1946, I was... shocked by what I'd chosen. I wasn't really in a steady state of mind. After Tony's death... well, after the snap itself... Sam, you know I was shaky. I landed in an alley near Vinegar Hill, where I'd grown up. It was strange because I was home for the first time in over 70 years, but I felt like I was out of my own body. The world felt alien, too quiet and too loud at once."

Sam's cheer had evaporated. He'd expected Steve to open up for a moment, and then promptly clam back up (as Steve was wont to do), but Steve kept going. 

"I knew where the SSR was located, I'd done some research, but I hadn't... planned. I didn't know what I was doing. I had money, so I bought clothes, a hat, a newspaper. It was July, and New York City in July is a different story heatwise, more so back then. Despite the heat, I wandered for hours. I didn't eat, didn't think to find a place to sit and strategize. I know now that I was disassociating, but at the time I was just floating. Finally, it got to evening. I found myself outside the SSR..."

So Steve talked. Sam ordered two more coffees (both went cold, untouched), and listened. He listened to the tale of Steve's reunion, not steamy or sexy but somber and marred by trauma. The days of reconnaissance, the hours of waiting. Following Peggy Carter's pistachio-green Morris Minor back to a guest-house for women. After accidentally giving himself away in the parking lot of the SSR, Steve ran, but not before seeing Peggy's red-lipsticked mouth fall open in shock at the sight of him. 

Sam didn't interrupt when Steve stopped for a moment, overcome with emotion at the painful memories. He listened quietly to the clink of forks and the quiet murmur of neighboring tables filled with families of tourists. 

"I couldn't let myself haunt her like that, after the parking lot. I made an appointment under an alias and I met her in her office."

A quiet guffaw escaped Sam's lips, and Steve winced even as Sam flagellated himself for reacting candidly. 

"I realize now that I may have made a poor choice in waiting so long... and after some retrospection, I can imagine how Peggy must have felt, waiting to meet a man called Grant Rogers mere days after confronting her so-called dead... well, we weren't together, but she knew. I knew. I'd seen Tony look at Pepper like she was the center of his universe, and I knew... well, I thought... Peggy could be my center too."

Sam watched Steve soak in the meandering words, and wondered what it must be like to have to start a relationship like that over. 

"She hit me, Sam."

Sam blinked out of his reverie. "Like, hit on you? Or-"

"She brained me with a stapler. I still remember how happy I was to feel blood drip down my face, because for the first time since Tony's burial, I felt _alive_. I felt like I could live, like I had something to reach after. Peggy had lit up too, then, though she'd pointed a gun at me and accused me of being a Soviet spy."

Sam took a big gulp of his frigid coffee and cringed at the bitter taste. 

"So how'd you convince her that you were really you?"

Steve smiled his stupid mysterious smile again, and Sam prepared himself for the inevitable fuckery that was a Steve Rogers Plan **™**. 

"I knew that Jim Morita was practicing in a clinic not too far from where Peg lived..."

* * *

-2018, after the Blip-

The absence of words didn't weigh on Steve at first, because it didn't seem permanent or important. 

They got back to New York and as expected, found only devastation. Rhodey and Natasha monitored the ever-rising count of missing population, while Bruce tried to activate a beeper that Fury had left behind (and damn, wasn't it a shame that they'd lost the most unflappable man on Earth in a situation where they needed him the most?).

He tried to be useful by picking Pepper up from the city, but the car ride that followed made Steve wish that _he_ was the one abandoned on a foreign planet. Pepper's eyes seemed to beseech him, and he couldn't meet them for fear of losing what little composure he had left.

And then Tony came back, skin and bones and fire and brimstone. His words scorched Steve's very skin, and he couldn't even flinch because he _deserved_ to feel this kind of condemnation. He had failed. He had failed them all, and his words were minor penance for his mistakes.

It was nice to meet new allies, even during the strangest of times. Steve remembered when Carol Danvers appeared out of nowhere with what felt like a solution, and for a moment, he'd let a wisp of hope rise from the embers of his burnt soul. Inspiring words rose from the embers and out of his mouth to his team, and he tried, _he tried so hard_ , to make it right, to undo what had been done. 

Of course, it was an exercise in futility. Thanos' genocide was final. They were gone. 

So Steve returned to Earth having lost the war, and everything he'd loved with it. 

They'd landed and Thor had fled with only his axe and the angry Raccoon.

Bruce packed a bag, saying that he was going to "help in any way he could".

Natasha got in touch with Wakanda and started to set up the skeleton of a new status quo for global security.

Pepper had taken Tony and moved him out of the compound while they were gone, which Steve could only describe as an act of mercy on her part.

Rhodey left for Washington, prepared to pick up what was left of the US Chain of Command so that they could begin the arduous task of governing what was left of their country. 

That left Steve, alone in his quarters. After all of the big speeches and battle-field quips, he was out of words. Silence was all he deserved, anyways. He had failed. 

* * *

-THREE DAYS AGO-

The first destination on Steve's list had been a shelter. Located in downtown Chicago near the Southside, the building was a little worse for the wear, but its appearance was cheerful. Bright flowers bloomed from pots that were lined up haphazardly along the sidewalk, and a banner that was clearly homemade proclaimed that they had arrived at the "Vision Center".

Sam let Steve take the lead. A young hijab-clad woman greeted Steve with a smile and a hand pressed to her heart. Steve mimicked her gesture and followed her as she led them past the front desk. "You must be Soraya. Thank you for getting back to my emails."

Soraya grinned brightly. "Oh Mr. Grant, it's so nice to meet someone interested in the genesis of our humble facility. People don't like to remember those days... but the Blip happened, and we had to do what we had to do. And here we are at our first destination! Welcome to the Maximoff Mental Health Clinic." 

They stood outside a small room within the facility. Inside, two volunteers sat at a desk checking in patients, while a third volunteer led a shuffling teenager to an office. 

Sam glanced at Steve, whose eyes sparkled with unshed tears. He wanted to ask where the hell he was, but checked his tone before asking, "Ma'am, can you tell me about the "Vision Center"? I'm not as familiar as my friend here."

Soraya smiled again at Sam, and he felt himself tear up for no goddamn reason at all except for the fact that he had survived genocide and was able to smile back at the stranger before him. 

"Certainly! Weeks after the blip, Chicago and most other cities were... chaos. I was just a kid then, but I'd had to grow up the minute my mom crumbled- sorry, I can't tell this story without crying." 

Soraya wiped her eyes and kept talking as she led them through the building. They passed by classrooms and community kitchens. Sam could see a garden through the windows, with elderly folk on the sidelines guiding children in their digging. 

"As I said, things were bad. Parents turned to dust while babies cried in their cribs. Dogs starved to death waiting for owners to let them out of their kennels. We... we could've gone the other way, it could've been bad- riots and the like. But we had these volunteer teams of people who showed up in every neighborhood. They'd evacuate trapped elderly and disabled people, help re-home orphaned kids."

She paused and unlocked a door at the end of the hall. It wasn't as clean or shiny as the other parts Sam had seen so far. The room was large and airy, set up in stations. There were blocks in one corner, a bookcase filled to the brim with books in the other. In the center of the room was a row of small easels and stools. Soraya stood next to a play kitchen and continued.   
  


"The Vision Center was one of many shelters to pop up after the Blip, but it was the first to tackle more than just finding a place for lost people to sleep. I was like a million other teenagers who'd suddenly had to step up for their remaining loved ones. The Center helped give me the resources to take care of myself and my sister, while also helping me normalize my life. A center volunteer found my aunt, got her to move here. She raised us while working at a corner store. My sister Iman and I spent hours here after school, playing and volunteering. There was this one volunteer-"   
  


Soraya stopped to grab Steve, who had stumbled slightly over an easel. 

"So, we were able to figure out food and shelter pretty easily. What was harder was talking about... the loss. I couldn't even look at a picture of my mom without having an anxiety attack. But after a year of hanging out around here, I met a man who didn't really have much to say, but who'd help out around wherever he was needed. He'd lead us in these painting sessions, some real Bob Ross stuff. He never meant to, but I think he ended up saving a lot of us. We could paint what we couldn't say, and it actually helped me realize that I needed to see someone about my anxiety."

Sam's eyes were so far past moist that he didn't even bother to blink away the tears. 

"These are some of the artworks produced in the year directly after the Blip. That top left one was me..." 

Sam wasn't listening anymore. His eyes had immediately been drawn to another wall, where several small portraits were tacked to the wall in no particular order. 

_There was Vision, with his eyes narrowed as though he were about to ask a question about human traditions-_

_and there was Wanda, holding a red rose and smiling with a silver-haired man-_

_and there was T'Challa, regal in purple ermine robes next to a wispy tree-_

_and there was Barnes as a boy, hair tousled by the wind and mouth twisted in a careless grin-_

_and there he was, Sam himself, standing at the edge of a building, wings unfurling white against the pink and gold sky._

Sam felt Steve's hand on his shoulder, and he squeezed it without taking his eyes off the art. 

"Say, whatever happened to the volunteer? The artist?"

Soraya's grin faltered for the first time that day. "He... He, uh, disappeared. After a few months. I'm grateful, but it was hard adjusting when he left. Though I guess we all had demons to exorcise those days."

Sam turned to look at Steve, who was doing his best to seem nonchalant.

"Uhuh. Is there a restroom we could use?"

* * *

-TWO DAYS AGO-

They drove to Philadelphia next. Steve spent 4 hours at a re-homing facility (which was a kinder synonym for the real term, orphanage) visiting with Blip babies who were now Blip Kindergartners, whose parents never came to pick them up upon returning from the Soul plane.

He hadn't realized, but listening to Steve and the facility director made Sam realize how hard it was to return to a world that hadn't stopped spinning for 5 whole years, despite the absence of half of its populace. There was a rise in abandoned children as traumatized Dusted people failed to reclaim their temporarily orphaned children, and again Thanos' mindless cruelty made Sam stop in his tracks and seethe.

Sam listened to another volunteer talk about how Captain America used to visit their facility and spend time with the kids who'd stopped talking, who'd retreated deep into themselves due to trauma.

She showed Sam pictures of a younger Steve with three kids sitting on each bicep. The kids in the pictures grinned ear-to-ear, but Sam could see the sadness behind Steve's own smile. 

After spending the night in a motel, Steve directed Sam to a place in New Hampshire for veterans called the "Barnes and Wilson Veteran Support Office". Sam didn't even wait to unbuckle his seat-belt before he started crying.

Steve waited silently until Sam was merely hiccoughing, and then he handed him a clean handkerchief from his breast-pocket. 

"How..." Sam blew his nose loudly, and then restarted his question. 

"How? How did you pay for this? Did you pay for all of these places? How did you even... when did you have the time?"

Steve shook his head and sighed, running his hand through his thinning hair. "Well, Sam, I did what I do best. I used my best Captain America voice to drum up support for these _noble and worthy causes_ , put on a whole song and dance. It was rough going, convincing the who's who to cough up cash, but it got the job done, and the services we were able to provide made the indignity worth it. I was able to... well, I was able to feel worthy of having breath in my body as long as I kept giving, giving, giving."

Sam shook his head and opened the car door. 

Steve followed, though neither of them exited the vehicle. 

The sun beat down on their heads, and Sam briefly wondered if Steve should apply sunblock to his now exposed scalp. 

"Why am I here with you Steve? Why am I on this roadtrip?"

Steve got out of the car, and Sam followed him. 

"Captain America's legacy is in the textbooks, Sam. They made documentaries, built statues. It was half-farce, half-idol worship. I watched you and Wanda and Vision and Bucky die, Sam... No one knew who you were beyond what the news said. You deserved a legacy that would live on in your names...I didn't think Steve Rogers deserved one, but Sam Wilson sure did. Bucky Barnes did. And here we are."

Sam sniffled, and pulled out the soiled hanky to blow his nose again. Steve slung his arm around Sam's shoulder. "I'm glad to show you this place in person. I figured putting your name _after_ Barnes' would get your goat, but you've hardly noticed, have you?" 

Huffing indignantly, Sam let Steve lead him inside as he thought about the nature of legacy, and the weight of the shield that sat in the trunk of his car.

* * *

-2018, two months after the blip-

Steve found his projects on accident. On a whim he'd decided to take a ride. The bike had been in a garage littered with luxury cars and ATVs, dusty with neglect (Stark was gone, and Steve missed him so much it made his chest hurt). He'd left without uttering a word, not that he'd been speaking much in the weeks after returning from killing Thanos. 

After getting out of the city, Steve could see that the roads were still littered with abandoned cars, and for a dreadfully long moment Steve was tempted to wallow in his own failure once again by searching each car and identifying their owners. Then, after a few more miles of driving, a weak mewling cry pierced his melancholy, and he let the bike idle by the side of the road as he listened again for the sound. He followed his ears to a car that had crashed into another--based off the fresh skid marks on the road, this accident was barely a day old.

The wreck wasn't directly caused by the Blip, but some poor soul was punished by its effects once again. In the backseat of the car was a car seat, and without thinking Steve tore the door off the old Buick to get to the baby who had somehow survived the accident. It seemed healthy enough, merely soiled and hungry and _scared,_ alone in the world. Steve unbuckled the child from its car seat with shaking hands and held it close.

He found a diaper bag by the feet of the dead passenger- _mother,_ he surmised, and then he took it and the baby back to his bike, where he spread a dirty blanket on the asphalt so that he could address the fetid diaper. The baby (a girl) had stopped crying, especially after Steve gave her some of the puff crackers from the diaper bag. He gazed at his bike for a long moment, and then came to a decision. The car seat was intact so he retrieved it. He grabbed his own backpack, the baby's bag, and the baby (now secure in car seat).

After shopping for a few minutes, he opened the driver's door of an abandoned SUV. Hot-wiring it was simple, much simpler than buckling a car seat into the backseat of the car. Thankfully, the car's tank was full of gasoline, and within minutes Steve was zooming down the highway towards the nearest city.

The baby seemed to sense that she was leaving her parents and began to wail, so Steve did what he did best. He reassured the baby in his best Captain America voice that she was going to be safe, that he would get her to a nice shelter- but the baby could tell that he was a lying bastard, so she screamed even louder. Steve tried not to panic but frankly, screaming seemed like a reasonable response to the general situation at hand. He let the baby cry herself to sleep, and it was only then that Steve let himself talk. 

"I got you, kid. I fucked it all up... I let them all go... but I got you. We'll take care of each other."

3 weeks later, the "Vision Center" was hastily christened after Steve frantically texted Pepper Potts about emergency real estate acquisitions in Chicago (and bless her for even answering him, for helping him at all). Baby Becca was adopted by a foster family. Steve hesitated when he dropped her off, wanting to say something about the baby's preferred song choices, but then he moved on without looking. 

He had work to do, and besides, silence was his hair shirt to wear. Alone.

* * *

-TWO DAYS AGO-

Sam walked Steve back to the car. The older man was flagging, and so was he, after 2 days on the road. Their hotel was nicer this time, so Sam let himself flop onto the bed with even less dignity than usual.

"Man, I'm tuckered out!"

Steve slowly sat at the edge of his own bed, removing his lace-ups slowly and reminding Sam of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. Snorting to himself quietly, Sam scrolled through his phone. Barnes has posted a picture of Miss Ginger chewing on his (vibranium) thumb. He handed the phone to Steve, who squinted for a moment before laughing loudly. 

"Bucky never could keep women offa him. God, it made him so mad when Peggy didn't give him the time of day. Though it was after Azzano, so Buck wasn't in his true form. Might be the only reason she even looked twice at me..."

Steve leaned back against the pillows as Sam waited expectantly for another story. 

"After weeks of interrogation and mistrust, she just... stopped fighting it. She accepted that it was me, Sam. She just... let me in. And I was starving for her to be with him- not like that you lecher, get your mind outta the gutter."

Sam waggled his brows and Steve threw him an affectionately dirty look. 

"Peggy hadn't lost any of her fire, but she was dimmer when I got back to her. War takes its toll on any soldier, and she wasn't respected like she'd been in the war. The world wanted women like her to remember their place. I was so used to the modern era, to the Greta Thunbergs and Pepper Potts of our time that I could scarcely stand it- or any of the prejudice for that matter. Why I didn't consider the racism and sexism and homophobia of the 1940s before going back, I don't know- my rose colored glasses made anything seem better than the present, I guess. I was really fucked up to think it would be better than the present..."

Room service arrived, and Sam got up to retrieve the burgers and fries that cost more than he'd ever let Steve know. He remained tactfully silent as he ate, letting Steve process whatever was running through his mind. 

"Peggy wouldn't kiss me or touch me at first, when she accepted that I wasn't a fraud. She'd made me tell her the truth, which she then corroborated with Morita... but then, she just asked me to come help her move into a small cottage outside of the city, no fuss. I thought that would be it, we'd be together... but she wouldn't even let her hand touch mine when she handed me a cup of coffee in the morning. I slept in the guest room and wondered what I'd done wrong... it took me weeks to gather that she was letting me _heal_. I was fucked up, Sam. I forgot all the calming techniques, all the grounding strategies- I had gotten _really_ lost, to the point where I would watch Peggy leave for work from the window and then just... stand there. I'd stay there all day, and wouldn't be able to think of a reason to move except for when she came home in the evening."

Sam's appetite had died a sudden death as he listened to the details of his friend's speedy psychological decline.

"She had my number, though- Sam, she saved me by making me--well, she made me do the work. Peggy was always smarter than me, she knew I wasn't right in the head. The fancy titles and diagnoses weren't well known but she could see a broken soldier, and she knew what I'd told her of Thanos.

It took six weeks for me to turn to her one morning over eggs and say, "I'm not feeling too good Pegs". She'd smiled then, sadly, and finally laid her hand on mine... and she handed me a list of names, shrinks and the like. I'd been laying low, growing a beard and wearing glasses when I went out, but I wasn't sure how I could talk about how I felt without revealing the truth."

Sam's gut clenched with anxiety so potent he could taste his burger coming back up his throat. "So how'd you do it? Did you make up a cover story?"

Steve shrugged, hands folded gently over his stomach. "No. I didn't talk about aliens and space and time travel, but I could talk about war. I could talk about shell-shock, my thousand-yard stare. I could talk about feeling lost in my own home. I could tell my doctor about the people I couldn't save, the lives I'd taken, the friends I'd failed. Genocide is genocide, war is war. Whether the villain was Hitler or Thanos made no difference to me or the doctor. And besides, it took me 4 sessions before I told the shrink anything real. I was just... I thought silence could be my price to pay for my mistakes... the doctor and Pegs helped me see that I was wrong, but it took months before I believed them."

The moment before he'd flown out of the portal, Sam had rehearsed his line so that Steve couldn't mistake him for anyone else. The man had stood alone before _thousands_ , and Sam knew that he was there for the fight of his life, next to his best friend and CO. They'd won, and it had been a blur of hugs and tears, somber handshakes and shaky reunions. 

Rhodey had cleared the area while Thor moved Tony's body to a safe place, so Sam had stood to the side and waited.

Bucky and Steve were embracing, and it made his heart sing to see the two reunited. He'd been very invested in their friendship's resumption, after all, and then Steve was striding towards Sam with blood leaking out of his torn forearm. Sam stepped forward and then Steve had grabbed him, hugged him tight to his chest like he was going to disappear again. There were no real words exchanged between them beyond "I'm so glad, Sam, I'm so... Sam..." 

That should've clued Sam in as to his friend's state of mind, but he'd just been _gone for five years_ so he hadn't taken real notice of the quaver in Steve's voice that went beyond joyful reunions. 

That his friend looked _worn_ hadn't hit Sam until much later, as Steve strode onto a platform while the Hulk calibrated a time machine, and then it was too late. He hadn't known that Steve was drowning in his guilt, and how could he? 

Steve had suffered in _silence._

* * *

The ride back was quiet. Steve knew he should say something, but he was content to just bask in the presence of his friend. Sam, his wing man, his brother in arms. 

Sam, whom he'd handed his shield and his moniker, but not his entire story.

He'd tried to explain about legacy before, but it had been an incomplete explanation, and he didn't want to ever leave his friends unsure of his motives ever again. After a few more minutes passed, Steve turned off the radio and cleared his throat. 

Steve gave up on searching for the right words and began. 

"Sam, I owe you an apology. I gave up my place in this timeline while in a disturbed state of mind, and because of that, I didn't think of what I was doing to our friendship. I showed up after decades thinking I could make it right by giving you the shield but... well, we both know that I didn't plan that out too well either. I cut my oldest friend out of my decision-making process altogether and jeopardized that relationship. I didn't give you an out either, just handed you the shield and left without explanation. It was stupid, and inconsiderate of me. I'm sorry."

He paused, thinking of everything else that he'd imagined saying to Sam while in his own timeline.

"Thank you for taking me on this trip. I wanted to show you that even while you were gone, I tried to make things right. I felt guilty so I tried to atone... what for, I'm not sure. I hadn't told anyone but Pegs about how hard those five years were for me- only Peggy knew about the fundraising, the construction, the volunteering. I wanted you to know too. My work, those shelters, they're part of my apology. I was inspired by you and your work for the VA. You showed me what Captain America could be, all those years ago in DC. The things I couldn't say all this time... things I still can't say... it's in those buildings. I was scared of failing more people, so I worked quietly and out of sight. But I did do the work, and that makes those shelters part of Captain America's legacy, which is now your legacy. You know better than I do that Captain America serves no country or government. We serve our people, no matter what they need or when they need it. I did... I did my best. I needed you to see that- I needed you to not resent me for my mistakes, to see that I'd done some fuckin' good-" Steve's voice broke as he began to weep, and Sam pulled over on to the shoulder of the highway. 

He was crying again too, and what was the deal with all of the crying on this trip?

Steve took Sam's hand in his gnarled one and squeezed, his grip still stronger than Sam would ever expect for it to be. 

Rubbing his wet eyes with his hand, Sam reassured Steve. "I never resented you, man. You ran into my life and you gave me purpose. You gave me back my wings, you sonuvabitch. I got to save the world with you. We all fuck up, and yeah, you did fuck up bad when you let yourself fall into that depression without asking for help, but I still love you and want to help you. The team always knew that you were trying your best, Steve. We all _knew_. The only person who expects perfection from you _is you_ , and that's been your deal since day one, according to Barnes."

"So you're okay with being Captain America? Even though I never really asked you if you were interested?"

Sam nodded, and he pulled back onto the road.

Steve stole Sam's energy drink as the car picked up speed and took a swig. "Gah! That tastes like piss mixed with sugar, Sam. Captain America shouldn't drink this swill."

Snatching it back, Sam retorted after chugging the remainder of the can with a barely-concealed wince. "Then Captain America shouldn't _steal_ Captain America's drink!"

* * *

When they returned home to the compound, Steve and Sam walked companionably back to Sam's quarters. The pink and gold had given way to an inky-violet night sky, and only the sound of the grass crunching beneath their feet punctuated the perfect stillness of the evening.

Steve looked up at the stars as he walked. Whether he was marching with his Commandos in the middle of a war-zone or breaking into Fort Knox to steal a pair of wings for a new friend, he knew that sometimes, the silence was safe, because he was not alone. His friends were safe, and he _had not failed._


End file.
